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GERMANY 
IN  THE  WAR  AND  AFTER 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

MSW  YORK  •   BOSTON  •   CHICAGO  •  DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limithi> 

LONDON  •   BOMBAY  •   CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA.  Ltdu 

TORONTO 


GERMANY 
IN  THE  WAR  AND  AFTER 


BY 

VERNON  KELLOGG 

Author  of  "Headquarters  Nights" 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1919 

All  rights  reserved 


COPTBIGHT,  1919 

bt  the  macmillan  company 


Set  up  and  eleetrotyped.     Published,  July,  1919 


o 


5'l5 


K 


PREFACE 

With  the  external  manifestations  of  Germany 
during  the  war  and  since  the  Armistice  the  world 
is  familiar.  But  with  what  was  going  on  inside 
that  extraordinary  country,  among  those  extraor- 
dinary people,  during  the  war  and  immediately 
after  it,  the  world  is  less  familiar. 

It  has  been  my  privilege  and  necessity  in 
the  course  of  my  duties  since  May,  19 15,  up  to 
the  present  time,  in  connection  with  the  work  of 
the  Commission  for  Relief  in  Belgium,  the  United 
States  Food  Administration,  and  the  American 
Relief  Administration,  all  under  the  directorship 
of  Herbert  Hoover,  to  have  some  rather  close 
personal  acquaintanceship  with  Germans  and  Ger- 
man conditions  during  all  of  that  time. 

The  present  opportunity  is  given  me  to  bring 
together  and  expose  whatever  of  my  knowledge 
seems  pertinent  to  the  need  of  us  all  to  under- 
stand as  well  as  we  can  the  war-time  and  post- 

868339 


Preface 

war  experience  and  situation  and  the  probable 
future  behavior  and  possibilities  of  Germany. 

My  thanks  are  given  to  my  friend,  Mr.  EUery 
Sedgwick,  editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  for 
permission  to  use  In  this  book  whatever  I  care 
to  from  a  recent  paper  published  In  his  magazine. 

V.  K. 

New  York  City, 
July,  1919. 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

All  the  chapters  In  this  book  except  the  last  one 
were  written  after  the  Armistice  but  before  the 
signing  of  the  Treaty.  The  last  one  was  written 
immediately  after  the  Treaty  was  signed. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A  Post-Mortem:  the  German  Army      .     .     .  ii 

German  Control  of  Germans 20 

What  the  Blockade  Did  to  Food      ....  30 

Other  Inside  Difficulties  During  the  War  .  45 

How  THE  People  Were  Deceived       ....  57 

What   the   Germans   Thought   During  the 

War  and  Armistice 66 

Germany  Now  and  To-morrow 79 


GERMANY 
IN  THE  WAR  AND  AFTER 

CHAPTER  I 

A    POST-MORTEM:    THE    GERMAN    ARMY 

A  POST-MORTEM  examination  of  the  patient 
often  reveals  the  cause,  or  causes,  before  that 
only  Imperfectly  understood,  of  the  fatal  Illness. 
Of  course,  sometimes  it  does  not.  The  case  of 
the  collapse  of  militaristic  Germanism  Is  one  that 
urgently  calls  for  examination  after  the  event. 
We  need  to  find  out,  for  the  sake  of  knowing  what 
not  to  do  or  be,  as  much  as  we  can  of  what  im- 
perial Germany  did  or  was  that  brought  her  to 
a  timely  end. 

There  may  be  some  who  will  remonstrate  that 
this  end  has  not  come  yet,  and  that  a  present  post- 
mortem examination  of  Germany  is  premature. 
In  all  truth.  Imperial  Germany  Is  not  wholly  dead. 

But  sometimes,  for  that  matter,  neither  Is  the  more 

II 


12       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

usual  subject  of  a  post-mortem  wholly  dead  at  the 
time  of  the  examination.  The  human  body  does 
not  all  die  at  one  moment;  it  dies  by  parts,  by 
organs,  by  tissues,  one  after  another.  For  ex- 
ample, the  amoeboid  white  blood  corpuscles,  the 
most  independent  parts  of  the  body,  go  on  moving 
and  functioning  long  after  the  heart  has  stopped 
beating.  The  army  was  the  heart  of  premortem 
Germany.  It  has  stopped  beating.  And  it  is 
revealing  some  curious  phenomena  in  the  course 
of  its  decomposition. 

Hauptmann  Graf  W.  had  been  my  escort  offi- 
cer at  German  Great  Headquarters  in  Charleville 
in  1915  and  1916.  It  was  he  who  had  been  the 
one,  as  described  in  an  earlier  book,^  to  brealc  in 
on  my  attempt  to  explain  one  night  at  dinner, 
on  his  invitation,  to  a  group  of  Headquarters  offi- 
cers just  what  it  is  that  America  understands  by 
democracy.  I  had  proceeded  but  a  little  way 
in  my  explanation  when  he  interrupted,  rather 
violently,  with  the  exclamation:  "  Democracy 
—  bah  —  license,  lawlessness,  anarchy."  On  his 
hurried  way  from  Charleville  to  Germany  after 
the   Armistice   he   passed   through   Brussels   and 

1  Headquarters    Nights,    1918,   Atlantic   Monthly  Press. 


A  Post-Mortem:     The  German  Army      13 

talked  with  one  of  our  C.R.B.  (Commission  for 
Relief  in  Belgium)  men. 

He  was  still  boasting  —  entirely  characteristic 
of  him  —  but  it  was  a  strange,  new  boast  he  ut- 
tered. Always,  at  Headquarters,  and  in  our  long 
motor  journeys  over  Occupied  France  on  relief 
business,  in  enforced  companionship,  he  had  up- 
held against  me  the  great  advantage,  nay,  the  ab- 
solute necessity,  if  a  people  was  to  be  well  gov- 
erned and  successful,  of  a  military  autocracy.  If 
America  wished  to  be  great,  or  if  she  had  for  the 
moment  the  seeming  of  greatness  but  wished  to 
assure  the  continuance  of  this  greatness,  she  should 
acquire  as  soon  as  possible  a  Kaiser  and  General 
Staff.  Germany  was  the  greatest  nation  in  the 
world  because  it  enjoyed  just  these  particular 
blessings;  of  course,  incidentally  its  people,  its 
Kultur,  etc.,  etc.,  were  the  best,  etc.,  etc.,  ad 
nauseam. 

But  Hauptmann  Graf  W.  had  learned,  surpris- 
ingly quickly,  a  new  boast.  Germany  was  now 
really  going  to  be  the  greatest  nation  because  she 
had  got  a  splendid  new  government,  a  real  demo- 
cratic government,  not  a  pseudo-democracy  like 
America's,  where  the  President  was  more  of  an 


14       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

autocrat  than  any  King  or  Kaiser  in  Europe,  but 
the  most  real  thing  in  democracies  conceivable. 

My  astonished  C.R.B.  friend  stammered  out 
a  question.  "  Do  all  the  officers  at  Great  Head- 
quarters and  all  the  other  officers  say  this,  too? 
Do  they  all  think  as  you  do?  " 

"  No,  not  all;  some  are  fools.  But  sixty  per 
cent,  of  them  do ;  and  the  other  forty  per  cent. — 
well,  they  don't  count." 

This  seems  hard  to  understand.  But  I  know 
the  Hauptmann  Graf  W.  very  well,  and  many 
others  like  him.  It  was  the  acceptance  of  author- 
ity, the  cringing  to  power.  The  Kaiser  had  run 
away;  so  had  some  of  the  General  Staff ;  the  others 
were  rapidly  changing  their  clothes,  doffing  uni- 
forms for  mufti.  The  "  real  democracy  "  was 
in  power;  hence,  knuckle  down  to  it.  This  is  not 
to  say  that  there  are  no  Germans  who  believe  in 
democracy  and  want  it.  Only  the  Hauptmann 
Graf  W.  is  not  one  of  them.  He  accepts  the  real 
democracy  —  if  it  can  give  the  orders. 

Some  of  the  leading  German  officers  and  offi- 
cials in  Belgium,  men  of  the  Governor-General's 
staff,  gave  an  edifying  exhibition  in  Brussels 
shortly  before  scurrying  away.     The  German  sol- 


A  Post-Mortem:     The  German  Army      15 

diers,  at  the  suggestion  and  with  the  moral  sup- 
port of  a  group  of  soldier-council  emissaries  from 
Hamburg  and  Berlin,  took  control  of  the  army 
in  most  of  Belgium  on  the  day  before  the  Armis- 
tice. The  insignia  of  rank  were  stripped  from 
the  officers'  uniforms,  or  the  officers  were  ordered 
to  strip  themselves  of  their  insignia,  which  they 
did,  and  a  Soldaten-Rath  was  established  in  Brus- 
sels under  the  leadership  of  Private  Einstein. 
This  council  requested  the  attendance  at  one  of 
its  meetings  of  half  a  dozen  of  the  highest  Ger- 
man officers  and  officials  in  the  city,  men  who  had 
been  the  rulers  of  Belgium  for  fours  years,  whose 
word  had  meant  life  or  death  to  German  soldiers 
and  Belgian  civilians  up  to  this  very  moment. 
They  came  to  the  meeting.  They  came  early. 
They  were  there  before  Einstein  arrived.  When 
he  came  in  they  rose  from  their  chairs  and  stood 
respectfully  until  he  was  seated. 

Amazing?  It  was  beyond  words.  I  can 
hardly  write  this.  It  is  too  good  to  be  true.  Yet 
it  Is  the  truth.  These  were  the  men  who  had 
shot  Miss  Cavell  and  scores  of  the  fearless  Bel- 
gians; the  men  who  had  brutalized  thousands  of 
German  soldiers;  the  men  who  had  insulted,  times 


1 6        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

unnumbered,  the  Americans  of  the  Relief  Com- 
mission. How  many  times,  for  the  sake  of  the 
work,  had  we  accepted  from  them,  unanswered, 
with  faces  burning  from  anger  and  shame,  a  bru- 
tal or  insulting  remark!  How  we  had  almost 
come  to  fear  them !     They  could  do  anything. 

Private  Einstein  had  learned  the  language  of 
command;  not  by  using  it,  but  by  hearing  it,  by 
having  it  growled  or  barked  at  him.  He  used  it 
now.  The  others  knew  it,  too.  And  they  knew 
the  proper  response.  Each  knew  how  to  lift  im- 
passive face  to  it,  hands  down  on  trousers  seams. 
Private  Einstein  gave  each  the  opportunity  to 
practice  a  little  all  that  he  had  so  long  practiced. 

Then  he  told  them  what  to  do  and  what  not  to 
do.  He  said  that  he  was  informed  that  the  jails 
in  Namur  had  not  yet  been  opened.  Would 
Governor  H.,  governor  of  all  of  Walloon  Bel- 
gium, see  to  it  that  the  prisoners,  British,  French, 
Italian,  were  all  released  by  night?  Gov- 
ernor H.  would  see  to  it.  Would  Graf  R., 
who  had  lived  in  the  same  house  with  Governor- 
General  von  Bissing,  and  used  this  famihar  inter- 
course to  rise  to  great  power  in  Belgium,  do  this 
other  particular  thing  that  Private  Einstein  wished 


A  Post-Mortem:     The  German  Army      ij 

done?  And  would  Baron  von  der  L.,  chief  po- 
litical adviser  of  the  successive  Governors-General 
of  Belgium,  and  a  widely  known  figure  in  German 
diplomacy  and  official  intrigue,  do  that  other 
thing?  The  humble  servants  of  Private  Einstein 
assured  him  that  they  would. 

Is  this  credible?     It  happened. 

In  the  few  days  after  that  meeting  these  men 
disappeared  from  Belgium.  They  slunk  away  in 
concealing  civilian  clothes  to  Holland  or  Ger- 
many. Haughty  Rupprecht,  crown  prince  of  Ba- 
varia, escaping  the  bullets  shot  into  his  house,  took 
refuge  in  the  Spanish  Legation,  whence  he  was 
taken  under  the  Spanish  flag  to  the  Dutch  frontier. 

A  few  officers  not  so  high  in  rank  and  not  so 
easily  convinced  of  the  advantage  of  the  new  de- 
mocracy —  some  of  the  foolish  forty  per  cent,  per- 
haps —  resisted  feebly.  They  continued  to  wear 
their  uniforms  and  insignia  and  tried  to  give  or- 
ders to  their  men.  Some  of  them  were  shot,  and 
others  shot  at.  From  the  Palace  Hotel,  former 
convivial  headquarters  of  German  officers  back 
from  the  front  on  leave  in  Brussels,  and  now  taken 
possession  of  by  the  soldiers,  a  machine  gun  spat 
bullets  across  th?  square  into  the  windows  of  the 


1 8        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

Cosmopolite,  last  hold-out  of  the  recalcitrant  offi- 
cers. The  soldiers,  the  soldier-councils,  were  giv- 
ing the  rulers  of  Germany  their  first  lesson  in  the 
"  splendid  new  democracy." 

It  is  apparently  not  necessary  to  observe  — 
which,  nevertheless,  I  do  here  parenthetically  — 
that  this  is  not  exactly  our  idea  of  democracy,  for 
the  officers  had  no  representation  in  it.  It  was 
dictatorship,  just  as  the  former  autocracy  was  dic- 
tatorship. The  rule  of  the  proletariat  alone  is 
no  more  democratic  than  is  the  rule  of  the  nobles 
alone.  Bolshevism  is  not  democracy.  It  is  the 
exchange  of  the  tyranny  of  Kings  and  Nobles  and 
General  Staffs  for  the  tyranny  of  the  bottom  rung 
in  the  political  and  social  ladder.  Russia  illus- 
trates this  now;  Germany  will  illustrate  it  to-mor- 
row if  the  Spartacists  have  their  way. 

But  to  return  from  the  parenthesis.  One  other 
Brussels  happening  must  be  recorded.  It  is  the 
departure  of  the  German  occupying  troops. 

On  "Liberation  Sunday"  (November  17th) 
my  wife  watched  for  three  hours  from  a  curtained 
window  on  the  Boulevard  du  Regent  that  strange 
procession  of  beaten  conquerors  passing  by,  the 
last  crazy  caravan  of  mixed   German   soldiers, 


A  Post-Mortem:     The  German  Army      19 

seized  Belgian  cattle  and  looted  Belgian  household 
belongings  piled  high  on  gun  carriages,  munition 
wagons,  passenger  hacks  and  hucksters'  carts, 
moving  east.  The  significant  thing  to  me  about 
this  procession — in  special  connection  with  the 
point  I  am  laboring  —  is  that  despite  the  uprising 
of  the  soldiers  and  degradation  of  the  officers  dur- 
ing the  last  week  before  the  evacuation,  when  the 
troops  moved  away  —  with  their  final  loot  — 
they  were  led  and  kept  in  line  by  officers !  It  was 
the  effect  of  long  tradition  and  ingrained  habit 
reasserting  itself.  In  taking  up  familiar  perform- 
ance again  the  soldiers  needed,  or  thought  they 
did,  or  just  accepted  without  need  or  thought, 
some  kind  of  control.  They  wanted  somebody 
over  them,  somebody  to  rely  on,  some  one  to  or- 
der them;  they  wanted  to  be  reassured  by  the 
familiar  bark.  Which  has  its  significance  to  be 
considered,  it  seems  to  me,  in  any  attempts  to  esti- 
mate just  how  rapidly  democracy  will  really  come 
to  its  own  in  new  Germany. 


CHAPTER  II 

GERMAN    CONTROL   OF   GERMANS 

At  the  time  of  this  writing  Noske,  minister  of 
national  defense,  is  the  strong  man  of  the  Major- 
ity Socialist  administration  of  Germany  and  the 
man  on  whom  chiefly  depends  the  hope  of  a  con- 
tinuing orderly  or  semi-orderly  government.  By 
the  time  this  is  published  he  may  not  be;  before 
then  he  may  be  assassinated;  he  almost  certainly 
will  be  if  the  Spartacists  can  get  to  him.  But  now 
he  is  the  strength  of  the  Government.  Why? 
Because,  although  he  is  a  socialist  and  man  risen 
from  the  ranks,  he  uses  the  control  methods  of 
the  old  regime.  He  wields  the  Big  Stick;  he 
controls  by  force.  The  Germans  understand  his 
ways.  He  orders  them,  and  sends  troops  to  en- 
force his  orders.  The  Ebert-Scheidemann  bloc 
has  a  large  majority  in  the  National  Assembly, 
and  the  majority  socialists  have  a  larger  number 
of  voters  than  any  other  German  party,  but  this 
alone  is  not  sufficient  to  give  them  control.     They 


German  Control  of  Germans  21 

must  have  a  Noske  and  the  Noske  method  of  pre- 
vailing upon  the  people  to  accept  their  decrees. 
The  splendid  new  democracy  will  do  very  well, 
and  Hauptmann  Graf  W.  and  his  kind  will  see  its 
reasonableness  and  advantage  —  as  long  as  it  can 
give,  and  enforce,  its  orders. 

The  way  to  control  Germans  and  Germany,  to 
make  decrees  valid,  to  make  promises  and  agree- 
ments binding,  to  make  treaties  sacred,  is  by  force. 
At  least,  this  is  the  way  until  the  New  Day  really 
comes  in  Germany.  This  the  French  know  very 
well  and  this  is  why  France  goes  panicky  to-day 
when  she  sees,  or  thinks  she  sees,  any  signs  of  any 
releasing  of  the  grip  that  the  world  has  on  Ger- 
many. The  attainment  of  the  present  moment 
has  cost  her  such  sacrifice,  and  so  weakened  her  — 
despite  her  great  success  —  that  any  surrender 
of  control  spells  danger  and  horror  to  her.  The 
Great  Menace  is  removed;  it  must  never,  never 
return.  That  is  the  dictating  note  in  all  of  the 
international  politics  of  France  to-day. 

But  Germany  is  more  broken  than  France  seems 
to  realize.  Perhaps  I  can  even  say,  she  is  more 
changed.  Anyway  for  a  strong  nation  to  be 
broken  is  to  be  changed.     When  our  first  food 


22        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

mission  to  Poland  reached  the  Swiss-Austrian  fron- 
tier in  January,  we  looked  for  possible  trouble 
from  the  Austrian  border  officials  with  regard  to 
our  passports  and  papers  and  the  numerous  bags 
and  boxes  which  contained  our  food  and  special 
traveling  conveniences.  But  no  Austrian  officials 
appeared  to  look  at  our  papers  or  examine  our 
baggage.  When,  made  bolder  by  this,  we  de- 
manded that  somebody  stamp  our  passports  as 
seen,  so  that  any  later  inspection  by  the  police  in 
Vienna  or  in  passing  out  through  the  northern 
Austrian  frontier  might  not  lead  to  trouble  for 
lack  of  these  vises,  we  were  told  by  representa- 
tives of  a  Soldaten-Rath:  "We  are  a  republic 
now;  anybody  can  come  and  go;  any  goods  can 
come  and  go;  you  don't  need  any  papers;  we  don't 
want  to  look  at  anything."  To  be  sure  this  was 
Austria,  not  Germany;  but  it  was  in  a  land  of  Ger- 
man ways.  And  it  was  a  great  change  from  other 
days. 

I  cannot  put  into  words  the  profound  impres- 
sion of  brokenness  that  Vienna  and  the  Viennese 
make  on  one.  Some  reports  have  come  to  Amer- 
ica that  the  Vienna  Opera  is  still  open,  that  the 


German  Control  of  Germans  23 

cafes  are  full  in  the  afternoons.  This  is  true. 
People  in  prolonged  times  of  distress  go  on  with 
many  of  their  traditional  habits  if  they  can.  All 
through  the  German  occupation  of  Brussels  the 
people,  at  any  rate  the  little  people,  crowded  the 
cinemas  and  cafes.  There  was  not  much  in  the 
cafes  to  eat  or  drink,  the  coffee  was  not  coffee, 
the  cakes  were  coarse  war  bread.  But  the  people 
came  and  sat  in  their  accustomed  places,  and 
looked  over  the  German-censored  newspapers,  en- 
tirely disbelieving  what  they  read,  and  exchanged 
in  whispers  the  latest  underground  news  or  ru- 
mors. 

So  in  Vienna  the  common  people  by  force  of 
habit  and  for  the  lack  of  better  to  do,  crowd  the 
cafes;  and  they  go  to  their  beloved  opera  on  the 
few  nights  that  the  city  can  spare  coal  and  light- 
ing for  it.  But,  in  fact,  Vienna,  "  die  lustige, 
schone  Stadt  Wien,"  is  the  most  depressed  and 
depressing  great  city  of  Europe  that  I  have  seen. 
Its  people  show  a  fatal  apathy,  broken,  with  no 
initiative  to  help  themselves,  waiting  for  some 
one  to  come  to  their  aid,  and  apparently  hope- 
less of  that.     It  is  really  horrible.     This,  at  least, 


24        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

is  my  impression  of  Vienna  as  I  saw  it  at  various 
times  in  January,  February  and  March  of  this 
year. 

Brussels  in  the  darkest  days  of  her  four  years' 
isolation  and  martyrdom  was  never  like  this. 
Warsaw  in  November,  19 15,  when  I  saw  her  soon 
after  the  iron  hand  of  von  Beseler  had  closed  on 
her,  nor  in  January  of  this  year  when  I  first  saw 
her  again  after  she  had  been  released  and  was 
struggling  all  unaided  to  find  herself,  with  her 
country  without  food  or  clothing,  without  work 
for  her  workmen,  without  stable  government, 
without  recognition  and  trying  to  fight  on  three 
fronts  against  Bolshevists,  Ruthenians  and  Ger- 
mans —  Warsaw  was  not  like  this. 

And,  finally,  a  great  difference  is  apparent  in 
Germany  itself.  Perhaps  we  cannot  say  that 
Germany  is  broken  as  one  can  certainly  say  of 
Austria,  but  if  the  French  could  see  more  of  the 
interior  of  Germany,  see  Berlin,  Munich,  Leip- 
zig, Hamburg  and  Frankfort,  see  the  kind  and 
quantity  and  quality  of  the  food  the  Germans  have 
to  live  on,  see  the  clothing  and  shoes  they  have  to 
wear,  see  the  type  of  men  at  her  head  that  she  has 
to  depend  on  for  guidance  and  control,  see  the 


German  Control  of  Germans  25 

extraordinary  difference  between  the  little  almost 
unrelated  groups  of  voluntary  soldiers  under  offi- 
cer adventurers  that  she  has  chiefly  to  depend  on 
as  army  to  quell  her  food  and  labor  riots  and  pre- 
serve her  from  Spartacist  uprisings,  as  compared 
with  that  terrible  machine  of  precision  and  power 
that  swept  through  Belgium  and  into  France  in 
19 14  and  held  these  ravaged  lands  through  all 
those  long  years  until  the  debacle  came  —  if  more 
of  the  French  could  see  more  of  all  this,  they 
would  be  less  panic-stricken  in  their  fear  of  a 
possible  swift  recuperation  of  imperial  Germany 
and  an  overpowering  German  army. 

From  my  hotel  window  in  Berlin  in  February 
I  used  to  watch  almost  each  day  the  march  past 
down  Wilhelmstrasse  of  the  guard,  at  noon,  on 
its  way  to  relieve  the  morning  squad  at  the  Chan- 
cellor's palace.  The  band  played  well,  but  the 
soldiers  marched  poorly.  People  of  the  street 
walked  along  beside  them  and  chatted  with  them; 
urchins  ran  through  the  column;  the  leaders  and 
side  guides  were  men  from  the  ranks.  Few  offi- 
cers' uniforms  were  seen  on  the  streets;  they  were 
not  healthful  clothes  to  wear.  We  saw  a  good 
deal  of  a  Major  von  S.,  attached  to  the  Foreign 


26        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

Office.  He  arranged  most  of  our  food  confer- 
ences with  the  government  officials  for  us.  When 
we  saw  him  in  his  own  rooms  he  wore  his  uni- 
form with  the  broad  red  Staff  stripe  down  the 
trousers;  when  we  saw  him  in  other  offices  or  on 
the  street  he  was  in  mufti.  The  insolent  Prus- 
sian officer  no  longer  lords  it  down  Unter  den 
Linden;  his  uniform  and  saber  are  tabu;  he,  him- 
self, in  mufti,  is  unrecognizable,  and  glad,  for 
his  health's  sake,  to  be  so. 

All  over  Berlin  are  placards  signed  by  Major 
X.  or  Oberst  Z.  calling  on  men  who  wish  to  be 
soldiers  to  enroll  themselves  with  me,  to  join  my 
crowd.  You  will  be  lodged,  fed  and  paid  by  the 
Government  and  commanded  by  me.  There  is 
something  in  It  for  all  of  us. 

These  are  the  freiwillige  bands  that  largely 
compose  the  German  army  of  to-day;  almost  in- 
dependent groups,  loosely  disciplined  with  the 
German  counterparts  of  the  old  Italian  condot- 
tiere  to  lead  them;  these  are  the  "Regiment 
Gerstenberg"  "  Regiment  Reinhardt,"  "  Regi- 
ment Oefen,"  that  one  reads  of  in  the  newspapers 
as  appearing  here  and  there  where  trouble  rises 
to  machine-gun  the  illegal  food-sellers,  the  "  Wild- 


German  Control  of  Germans  27 

Haendler/'  of  the  Moabit,  or  the  Spartacist  riot- 
ers in  Hamburg,  Halle,  or  Leipzig.  They  do  not 
compose  an  overpowering  German  army,  nor  are 
they  likely  to.  To  be  sure  one  of  these  condot- 
tiere  may  turn  out  to  be  a  man  of  magnetism  and 
ambition;  he  might  possibly  gather  round  him 
many  of  these  groups  and  tie  them  together;  he 
might,  possibly,  become  a  military  dictator.  It 
is  a  contingency  to  reckon  with.  But  it  is  a  re- 
mote contingency. 

There  has  been  an  impressive  and  dangerous - 
break-down  of  governmental  control  in  Germany 
since  the  debacle  of  the  imperial  government  and 
army,  a  break-down  to  be  expected,  but  to  be  reck- 
oned with  in  all  considerations  of  German  possi- 
bilities. Street  crimes,  petty  robbery,  hold-ups, 
illegal  food-selling,  disregard  of  the  old  Verbotens 
that  so  strictly  and  minutely  controlled  the  per- 
sonal life  of  the  Germans,  all  of  these  go  on 
openly  and  winked  at  by  military  and  police  offi- 
cials. 

The  break-down  in  food-control  has  upset  all 
governmental  calculations  and  attempts  to  make 
the  food  supply  last  out  until  the  next  harvest. 
Many  reports  have  come  to  America  from  our 


28        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

soldiers  and  our  visitors  along  the  Rhine,  of  the 
plentiful  supply  of  food  available  in  Germany. 
They  really  mean  to  speak  of  the  plentiful  supply 
available  in  the  territory  occupied  by  the  Allies. 
Food  flows  toward  occupying  armies.  The  very 
abundance  of  food  along  the  Rhine  means  a  more 
serious  shortage  elsewhere  than  would  otherwise 
exist.  And  that  shortage  exists  all  over  the  rest 
of  Germany.  In  the  best  hotels  of  Berlin,  Mu- 
nich and  Leipzig  I  really  suffered  from  the  in- 
sufficiency, the  monotony  and  the  poor  quality  of 
the  food.  I  came  out  of  Germany  after  only  a 
few  weeks'  stay  there  hungry  and  upset  in  my 
insides.  One  simply  cannot  live  in  health 'on 
coarse  fish  and  the  products  of  a  laboratory  of 
organic  chemistry.  That  was  the  chief  content 
of  the  Berlin  menu. 

Without  the  importation  of  the  foodstuffs  now 
being  effected  through  the  permission  and  by  the 
provision  of  the  Allies,  Germany  could  not  possi- 
bly keep  its  people  alive  until  autumn.  This  food 
is,  of  course,  being  paid  for  by  the  Germans;  it 
is  not  being  given  them.  The  shipping  that  brings 
the  food  from  overseas  is  German  shipping.  The 
food  relief  of  Germany  and  Austria  is  a  commer- 


German  Control  of  Germans  29 

clal  transaction,  not  a  dole.  The  "  relief  "  con- 
sists in  the  permission  to  have  food,  and  a  certain 
assistance  in  making  it  available.  But  it  is  a  most 
important,  an  imperatively  necessary,  relief.  It 
keeps  the  people  from  starvation  and  it  aids  the 
Germans  to  control  themselves.  Without  it  there 
would  be  anarchy;  even  with  it,  anarchy  is  an 
ever-present  possibility. 


CHAPTER  III 

WHAT   THE    BLOCKADE    DID   TO   FOOD 

Under  Secretary  of  State  von  Braun  once 
made  a  notable  little  speech  during  the  war  in 
which  he  presented  to  the  Reichstag  —  and,  inci- 
dentally, to  the  German  people  and  the  world  — 
the  irrefutable  facts  which  proved  that  Germany 
could  not  be  starved  into  a  break-down,  that  if 
the  Allies  were  counting  on  the  blockade  and  the 
food  and  raw  materials  shortage  to  win  the  war 
they  were  doomed  to  bitter  disappointment,  and, 
finally,  that  if  the  Allies  did  not  make  an  early 
peace  with  Germany  something  awful  would  soon 
happen  to  them. 

The  second  official  interview  that  Dr.  Taylor 
and  I,  representing  Mr.  Hoover  and  the  United 
States  Food  Administration,  had  in  Berlin  In 
February  was  with  Under  Secretary  of  State  von 
Braun.  On  this  occasion  he  made  us  a  notable 
little  speech  In  which  he  presented  the  Irrefutable 
facts  which  proved  that  Germany's  break-down 

.     .  30 


What  the  Blockade  Did  to  Food      31 

was  due  practically  entirely  to  her  shortage  in 
food  and  raw  materials,  and  that  unless  something 
were  done  quickly  to  relieve  the  terrible  situation 
in  which  Germany  now  found  herself  she  would 
simply  explode  into  revolution  and  Bolshevist 
anarchy,  and  the  Allies  would  have  to  face  the 
awful  something  that  such  a  catastrophe  in  mid- 
Europe  would  entail. 

This  illustrates  one  of  the  difficulties  that  faced 
those  who  attempted  to  learn  anything  about  Ger- 
many's condition  before  the  debacle  by  listening 
to  German  declarations  about  It,  and  that  faces 
those  to-day  who  would  try  to  know  something  of 
Germany's  present  condition  by  taking  a  German 
official's  word  for  it.  Official  lying  seems  to  be 
the  great  German  national  sport.  Under  Secre- 
tary of  State  von  Braun  lied  to  the  German  peo- 
ple and  the  world  when  he  made  his  Reichstag 
speech.  But  that  has  little  importance  for  us 
now.  What  does  have  importance  Is,  how  much 
are  he  and  the  others  lying  now  when  they  pretend 
to  reveal  in  all  candor  the  German  situation  that 
must  largely  determine  the  attitude  and  action  that 
the  Allies  and  America  have  to  take  toward  Ger- 
many now  and  for  some  time  to  come. 


32       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

With  regard  to  this  I  may  say  at  once  that  I 
think  Under  Secretary  von  Braun  lied  less  to  us 
III  Berhn  in  February  than  he  lied  to  the  German 
people  and  the  world  during  the  war.  We  have 
certain  extrinsic  proofs  of  this. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  blockade  did  effec- 
tive things  to  Germany,  especially  from  the  early 
part  of  19 1 7  on,  that  is,  since  America  came  into 
the  war.  By  our  action  toward  the  neutral  states 
contiguous  to  Germany  we  helped  tighten  up  the 
blockade  to  the  real  pinching  point. 

Some  of  these  effective  things  have  been  re- 
vealed since  Armistice  Day.  They  can  be  ex- 
pressed In  figures;  to  begin  with,  certain  German 
official  figures.  This,  of  course,  puts  the  pre- 
sumption strongly  against  them.  But,  strangely, 
they  are  confirmed  by  certain  German  figures 
which  we  have  been  able  to  get  unofficially.  In 
addition,  the  American  War  Trade  Board,  the 
American  military  and  naval  Intelligence  services 
and  our  diplomatic  representatives  in  those  neu- 
tral countries  nearest  to  Germany  and  most  ac- 
tively In  commercial  relations  with  her  during  the 
war  were  able  to  obtain  information  which  was 
not  only  of  Important  use  during  the  war  but  is 


What  the  Blockade  Did  to  Food       33 

now  very  serviceable  In  checking  up  the  figures 
that  the  German  Government  is  presenting  to 
make  out  its  case  of  present  need  and  its  plea  for 
practical  pity.  With  these  figures  In  our  hands, 
Dr.  Taylor  and  I  were  able  to  ask  pertinent  ques- 
tions of  the  Berlin  ofiicials  and  to  correct  these 
officials  whenever  they  seemed  inclined  to  dash  off 
into  the  national  official  sport  that  I  have  referred 
to  by  the  ugly  word. 

Also  certain  testimony  for  the  figures  is  appar- 
ent to  the  eye  in  Germany  to-day.  These  things 
seen  on  the  streets  are  less  amenable  to  expres- 
sion in  figures  but  they  have  a  real  value  in  con- 
nection with  any  statistical  considerations.  They 
reveal  something  of  the  likelihood  or  unlikelihood 
of  that  which  the  figures  purport  to  prove. 

For  example,  one  sees  fewer  strongly  convex 
Germans  now  than  in  the  old  days.  This  is  an  ob- 
vious fact  that  helps  to  give  reality  to  the  other- 
wise bald  and  unillustrated  statistical  statements 
concerning  shortages  in  meat  and  fats  and  bread 
and  beer.  Wooden  collars  and  cuffs,  paper  shirts 
and  skirts  and  shoes  with  wooden  soles  and  cloth 
or  paper  uppers  are  not  articles  that  one  chooses 
to  wear  when  textiles  and  leather  are  plentiful. 


34        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

But  Germans  wear  them.  Nor  do  the  principal 
hotels  of  Berlin,  Munich  and  Leipzig  use  paper 
tablecloths  and  napkins  and  laboratory-made 
food  by  predilection  or  for  economy's  sake  alone. 
The  other  kinds  are  simply  too  scarce. 

But  after  all  we  must  have  recourse  to  figures 
to  make  the  war-time  situation  really  apparent. 
Let  us  begin  with  meat  and  fats  which  the  block- 
ade, according  to  von  Braun's  Reichstag  speech, 
was  not  hitting  very  hard,  and  anyway,  if  it  was, 
was  not  doing  much  harm  to  because  of  the  suffi- 
ciency of  home  production.  What  is  the  story 
to-day  of  the  facts  of  yesterday? 

The  Germans  are  willing,  nay,  anxious,  to  ad- 
mit that  while  before  the  war  not  less  than  900,000 
tons  a  year  of  meats  and  animal  fats  were  im- 
ported directly  or  produced  by  imported  concen- 
trated foodstuffs,  the  19 17  importations  of  animal 
fats  were  only  5,000  tons  and  the  19 18  (first  ten 
months)  only  2,000  tons,  while  the  importation 
of  concentrated  feeding  stuffs  for  the  animals  was 
cut  to  one-one-hundredth  of  the  pre-war  figures. 
And  as  a  consequence  of  this  effect  of  the  blockade 
and  of  other  meat-limiting  conditions  the  German 
meat  ration  during  the  months  just  preceding  the 


What  the  Blockade  Did  to  Food       35 

Armistice  was  on  the  average  only  135  grams 
(4^  oz.)  per  head  per  week  for  the  city  popu- 
lations, which  is  just  about  one-eighth  of  the  aver- 
age pre-war  consumption.  Also  this  meat  was 
much  inferior  to  the  pre-war  meat,  and  the  substi- 
tute protein-supplying  eggs  and  fish  were  not  avail- 
able to  take  its  place.  The  meat-hungry  people 
raided  the  game  preserves  of  the  Kaiser,  and  even 
captured  and  ate  those  familiar  and  famous  Berlin 
swans  that  used  to  paddle  so  pridefully  and 
Prussianly  on  the  Spree  and  Havel. 

While  the  pre-war  average  annual  German  con- 
sumption of  eggs  amounted  to  425,000  tons,  of 
which  40  per  cent,  were  imported,  the  war-time 
use  of  eggs  was  reduced  to  an  amazing  degree. 
In  19 17  the  imports  of  eggs  amounted  to  but 
40,000  tons  (instead  of  the  pre-war  annual  aver- 
age of  170,000  tons)  and  in  19 18  (first  ten 
months)  to  but  17,250  tons.  Also  because  many 
hens  were  killed  on  account  of  the  shortage  of 
meat,  and  there  was  little  grain  available  to  feed 
the  ones  left  alive,  the  native  production  of  eggs 
was  much  reduced.  In  Berlin  for  several  months 
before  the  Armistice  there  was  but  one  egg  a 
month  available  per  head  of  the  population. 


36        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

As  to  fish,  the  figures  tell  a  similarly  sad  story. 
While  of  the  pre-war  average  annual  fish  consump- 
tion of  577,000  tons,  Importations  were  relied  on 
to  the  extent  of  about  361,000  tons,  these  imports 
were  cut  in  19 17  to  161,000  tons  and  19 18  (first 
ten  months)  to  97,830  tons.  Also  the  native  fish 
catch  was  greatly  lessened. 

Coupled  with  this  shortage  in  meat,  eggs  and 
fish  was  the  shortage  in  butter.  During  the  last 
months  before  the  Armistice  the  quantity  of  but- 
ter available  in  Berlin  per  week  was  not  more 
than  that  which  had  been  available  per  day  before 
the  war.  And  there  was  but  little  vegetable  oil 
and  fat  to  make  up  for  the  lack  in  animal  fats. 
There  was  practically  a  total  stoppage  of  the  im- 
portations which  before  the  war  had  provided  over 
82  per  cent,  of  the  188,500  tons  of  vegetable  oils 
and  fats  annually  used.  Of  the  1,600,000  tons 
of  oleaginous  fruits  and  seeds  annually  imported 
in  pre-war  time,  but  little  more  than  one-one-hun- 
dredth could  be  imported  in  19 17. 

Finally,  in  this  group  of  protein-carrying  and 
fatty  foods,  milk  demands  a  special  paragraph. 
Germany  was  in  the  unfortunate  position  of  de- 
pending for  the  production  of  nearly  one-half  its 


What  the  Blockade  Did  to  Food       37 

milk  on  imported  concentrated  foodstuffs.  As  al- 
ready stated,  the  blockade  played  havoc  with  these 
importations.  The  annual  average  of  5,180,000 
tons  for  the  years  19 12  and  19 13  was  reduced  to 
59,000  tons  in  19 17  and  to  41,000  tons  for  the 
first  ten  months  of  19 18.  The  absolute  minimum 
milk  requirements  for  Germany  are  estimated  at 
one  and  three-fourths  million  liters;  in  the  last 
year  of  the  war  there  were  not  more  than  one  and 
one-fourth  million  liters  available. 

All  this  frightful  shortage  in  meats  and  animal 
fats  made  Germany  in  war  time,  perforce,  a  land 
of  vegetarians.  But  rice,  after  the  stocks  existing 
at  the  beginning  of  the  war  were  used  up,  was 
practically  totally  lacking.  The  importation  of 
dried  legumes  was  cut  from  an  annual  pre-war 
average  of  310,800  tons  to  1,708  tons  in  19 17. 
So  on  bread  and  potatoes  fell  the  burden  of  keep- 
ing the  German  people  alive  through  the  war. 
And  they  had  a  thankless  task  of  it. 

In  the  first  place  there  was  not  enough  of  them; 
in  the  second  place,  sometimes  the  potatoes  and 
always  the  bread  were  of  poor  quality.  The  ne- 
cessity of  "  stretching  "  the  grain  by  milling  it  at 
a  high  percentage  —  going  from  the  usual  70  per 


38        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

cent,  first  to  72  per  cent.,  then  75  per  cent.,  then 
80  per  cent.,  then  82  per  cent.,  and  in  the  last 
year  of  the  war  to  94  per  cent. !  —  and  by  mix- 
ing with  this  high  extraction  wheat  and  rye  flour 
other  meals  such  as  potato,  bean,  pea,  barley,  oat, 
and  turnip  meal,  together  with  finely  ground  bran, 
resulted  in  a  bread  almost  unedible  for  many. 
Even  starving  people  can  balk  at  turnip  bread. 
It  was  indeed  the  terrible  ''  Kohl-Ruben  Zeit " 
(Epoch  of  Turnips)  of  late  1916  and  early  1917 
that  did  more  to  unsettle  the  German  confidence 
in  such  speeches  as  von  Braun's  than  anything  else. 
It  is  from  that  time,  when,  in  the  face  of  a  failure 
in  the  potato  crop  of  19 16,  it  was  necessary  to 
have  recourse  to  the  abundant  supply  of  turnips 
to  replace  lacking  potatoes  and  when  these  turnips 
were  also  used  as  substitutes  for  many  other  foods, 
even  to  the  extent  of  making  turnip  marmalade 
and  turnip  coffee,  that  the  increase  in  mortality 
and  morbidity  among  the  German  civil  population 
appears.  Which  introduces  us  to  a  new  set  of 
figures,  German  official  figures,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, which  we  are  not  in  a  position  at  present  to 
check  up  as  effectively  as  we  can  the  figures  of 
reduced  importations.     Indeed  we  must  wish,  for 


What  the  Blockade  Did  to  Food       39 

humanity's  sake,  that  they  are,  as  they  probably 
really  are,  exaggerated. 

In  the  first  place,  the  malnutrition  of  the  people 
had  as  consequence  a  marked  reduction  in  weight. 
Statistics  collected  from  all  towns  of  over  5,000 
population  reveal  an  average  loss  per  person  of 
20  per  cent,  in  weight.  Losses  of  even  50  per 
cent,  were  not  rare.  The  consequences  of  this 
"  emaciation,  caused  especially  through  shortage 
of  albuminous  foods,  were,"  according  to  an  offi- 
cial report,  (i)  "  reduction  of  physical  and  men- 
tal capacity  of  the  individual;  his  will  power  and 
mental  balance  were  gravely  affected;  (2)  the  re- 
appearance of  suppressed  or  controlled  diseases; 
(3)  rapid  increase  of  other  diseases;  (4)  irregu- 
larities in  female  functions  and  a  general  tendency 
towards  infertility;  (5)  retarded  recovery  in  all 
cases  of  illness;  (6)  marked  increase  in  mortality 
and  morbidity,  especially  among  the  aged  and  the 
youth  of  school  age." 

This  German  official  confession  of  a  break- 
down in  the  mental  capacity,  will  power,  and  men- 
tal balance  —  by  which  it  is  intended  to  say  also 
moral  balance  —  of  the  people  is  probably  made 
as  an  excuse  for  many  wrong  things  not  explicitly 


40       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

but  Implicitly  admitted  to  have  been  committed 
during  the  war.  It  can  hardly  apply,  however,  to 
the  soldiers  themselves,  who  up  to  the  last  mo- 
ment were  at  least  fairly  well  fed,  and  for  the 
most  part  of  their  service  very  well  fed.  It  must, 
therefore,  be  offered  as  an  excuse  for  the  tolerance 
and  often  open  approval  of  the  people  at  home, 
that  is,  the  nation  as  a  whole,  of  the  brutalities  and 
crimes  committed  by  the  army  In  Belgium  and 
France,  and  of  the  unmoral  methods  of  the  Ger- 
man rulers  and  statesmen. 

But  there  were  other  peoples  who,  during  the 
war,  were  hving  on  a  minimum  life-sustaining  ra- 
tion, and  who  lost  weight  under  it,  and  were  ex- 
posed to  all  the  consequences  of  malnutrition. 
With  all  the  efforts  of  the  Commission  for  Relief 
in  Belgium,  most  of  the  ten  million  people  in  Oc- 
cupied Belgium  and  France  —  especially  France 
—  were  underfed  through  all  the  period  of  the 
war.  Their  food  shortage  began  within  a  few 
months  after  the  war  began;  Germany's  food 
shortage  did  not  begin  to  be  serious  until  a  year 
after  theirs.  Yet  no  one  would  have  been  less  In- 
clined to  ascribe  to  the  imprisoned  and  half- 
starved   Belgian  people   a   serious   falllng-off   In 


What  the  Blockade  Did  to  Food      41 

will  power  and  mental  capacity  and  moral  balance, 
in  one  word,  morale,  than  Governors-General  von 
Bissing  and  von  Falkenhausen  and  their  staffs, 
to  whom  control  of  the  Belgian  people  was  in- 
trusted. The  underfed  Belgians  maintained  a 
spirit  through  all  their  martyrdom,  under  all  the 
discouragement  of  continuous  bad  news  —  care- 
fully provided  whether  the  real  news  was  bad  or 
good  —  and  all  the  humiliation  and  privation  of 
soup-lines  and  all  the  possible  hopelessness  of  re- 
sistance that  is  beyond  words  fully  to  make  known. 
On  the  other  hand  the  underfed  Germans  had  all 
the  encouragement  of  the  long  period  of  German 
military  successes,  and  of  the  continuously  ex- 
ploited assurances  of  ultimate  success  and  an  en- 
suing grand  orgy  of  eating,  drinking,  and  being 
merry  at  the  expense  of  the  Allies. 

Yet,  after  all,  it  is  probably  true  that  the  under- 
nutrition of  the  Germans  is  in  some  measure  re- 
sponsible for  some  of  their  lack  of  mental  and 
moral  balance.  Especially  is  It  probable  that  the 
food  shortage  In  the  spring  and  summer  of  19 18, 
coupled  with  their  sudden  and  profound  disillu- 
sionment in  the  autumn,  are  responsible  for  much 
of  their  present  hideous  surrender  of  personal  con- 


42       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

trol.  For  the  disorderly  German  of  to-day  is  an 
amazing  revelation  to  any  one  who  knew  the  or- 
derly German  of  yesterday. 

As  to  the  actual  mortality  in  the  civil  population 
during  the  war,  and  ascribed  by  the  authorities  to 
the  food  shortage,  it  is  declared  that  while  the 
year  19 14  showed  no  increase  over  1913,  there 
was  in  19 15  an  increase  of  9%  per  cent,  over 
1913,  in  1916,  14  per  cent.,  in  1917,  32  per  cent., 
and  in  19 18,  37  per  cent.  The  great  increase  be- 
gan in  December,  19 16,  in  the  Kohl-Ruben  Zeit. 
These  percentages  indicate  a  total  number  of 
deaths  in  19 15-19 18  of  nearly  800,000  more 
civilians  —  the  deaths  of  two  million  soldiers  are 
entirely  excluded  —  than  would  have  died  if  the 
death  rate  of  19 13  had  remained  the  annual  aver- 
age for  the  four  war  years.  The  increase  was 
greatest  proportionately  in  the  age  group  5  to 
15  years  (55  per  cent,  over  the  19 13  rate)  and 
next  in  the  i  to  5  years  group  (49H  per  cent,  over 
1 9 13).  Tabulated  by  disease  causes,  the  most 
notable  increase  was  from  tuberculosis  which, 
from  a  rate  of  16  per  10,000  deaths  in  19 12  and 
15  per  10,000  deaths  In  19 13,  jumped  to  18  per 


What  the  Blockade  Did  to  Food       43 

10,000  in  1916,  25  in  1917,  and  27%  in  1918, 
or  in  this  last  year  of  the  war  almost  exactly  dou- 
ble that  of  19 13. 

In  the  preceding  discussion  of  the  food  dif- 
ficulties, no  reference  was  made  to  the  situation 
as  regards  the  stimulating  drinks,  coffee,  beer  and 
wine,  so  abundantly  used  by  tbe  Germans  in  nor- 
mal times,  nor  to  tobacco  which  is  the  German's 
sine  qua  nan.  All  these  suffered  a  sea-change 
early  in  the  war,  which  became  more  and  more 
accented  as  the  months  passed.  The  coffee  was 
not  coffee;  the  tobacco  not  tobacco;  and  the  beer 
became  scarce  and  thin;  German  wines  were  still 
available,  at  great  price,  but  French  wines,  certain 
kinds  of  which  are  much  affected  by  the  Germans 
for  their  alleged  excellent  effects  on  digestion, 
were  altogether  wanting  after  the  stocks  seized 
and  stolen  in  the  first  months  of  the  war  had  been 
used  up. 

Germany  had  annually  imported  about  181,000 
tons  of  coffee  before  the  war,  or  about  three  kilo- 
grams per  person.  When  no  more  coffee  came 
in,  recourse  was  had  to  many  kinds  of  substitutes. 
Browned  grains  were  first  used  and  were  the  most 
acceptable,  but  the  grain  shortage  soon  limited 


44       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

their  use.  Other  substitutes  were  made  from 
dried  and  browned  figs,  sugar  beet  chips,  turnips, 
"  and  other  vegetable  garbage,"  as  a  German 
official  suggestively  put  it.  All  these  substitutes 
lacked  precisely  that  element,  caffeine,  that  gives 
coffee  its  stimulating  effect,  which  was  an  effect 
especially  sought  for  by  the  underfed  people. 

The  beer  was  gradually  lessened  in  amount  and 
alcoholic  strength.  As  the  demand  on  all  the 
cereals  fit  for  human  consumption  for  use  as  food, 
chiefly  in  the  form  of  bread,  was  so  imperative, 
only  very  small  quantities  of  them  could  be  as- 
signed to  the  brewers  for  beer-making.  This 
quantity  got  to  be  as  low  as  5  per  cent,  of  the  pre- 
war quantity  so  used. 

As  for  tobacco,  all  sorts  of  unsatisfactory  sub- 
stitutes were  resorted  to.  Among  them  were  hop 
flowers,  the  foliage  of  various  trees,  pine  needles, 
and  the  leaves  of  a  curiously  large  variety  of  other 
plants.  I  remember  trying  a  certain  one  of  these 
tobacco  substitutes  called  Kriegs-Mischung  with 
most  uncomfortable  results.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
not  a  little  illness  was  caused  by  smoking  certain 
of  these  substitutes,  especially  beech-leaves. 


CHAPTER  IV 

OTHER    INSIDE    DIFFICULTIES    DURING    THE    WAR 

If  the  blockade  and  general  war  situation  made 
the  difficulties  of  food  supply  so  serious  that  their 
steady  cumulation,  as  time  passed,  tended  plainly 
to  inevitable  disaster,  no  less  can  be  said  of  the 
difficulties  in  the  supply  of  raw  materials  for  cloth- 
ing and  footwear  and  for  the  necessary  industries, 
and  the  difficulties  In  coal  supply  and  railway 
transportation.  It  was  all  very  well  to  tell  the 
world  that  paper  shirts  and  skirts  were  quite  as 
comfortable  as  woolen  and  cotton  ones,  and  that 
wooden  soles  and  near-leather  uppers  made  shoes 
good  enough  for  anybody,  that  copper  was  easily 
replaceable  by  mysterious  new  alloys  abundantly 
available,  and  that  the  German  coal  supply  was 
undiminished,  and  the  railways  functioning  under 
the  all-efficient  military  control  with  unusual  per- 
fection, but  It  was  quite  another  thing  to  face 
actually  living  these  lies  Indefinitely. 

"  American    bluff "    never    dared    such    dizzy 

45 


46        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

heights  as  the  Germans  easily  rose  to  in  the  latter 
years  of  the  war.  But  bluff  cannot  too  long  sub- 
stitute for  reality,  and  this  particular  German 
bluff  was  simply  another  disappointing  Ersatz. 

When  I  first  arrived  in  Belgium,  in  June,  19 15, 
and  was  soon  after  assigned  to  the  relief  work 
in  occupied  France,  I  used  to  travel  between 
Brussels  and  my  post  at  Great  Headquarters  in 
Charleville  on  the  German  military  trains  of 
which  several  a  day  regularly  made  the  five  hours' 
journey.  In  the  summer  and  autumn  of  19 15 
these  trains  left  Brussels  (or  Charleville)  always 
promptly  on  the  minute  and  arrived  at  destination 
equally  promptly  on  the  minute.  They  were 
composed  of  first-class  corridor  cars  in  excellent 
condition,  clean,  well-lighted  and,  when  winter 
came,  well-heated.  There  was  a  dining  car  and 
buffet  car  for  the  single  meal  or  mid-meals  drink- 
ing that  the  German  officers  enjoyed  on  the  jour- 
ney.    Everything  was  efficient  and  comfortable. 

But  this  did  not  last.  As  the  months  passed, 
the  trains  lessened  in  number,  the  coaches  became 
jumpy  as  to  wheels  and  ragged  as  to  upholstering, 
the  lights  faded  to  sputtering  and  then  into  gloomy 
darkness,  the  dining  car  and  the  food  and  drink 


Other  Inside  Difficulties  47 

disappeared,  and  instead  of  starting  and  arriving 
on  schedule  time  there  was  delay  in  getting  away, 
interruptions  along  the  journey,  and  utter  uncer- 
tainty as  to  time  of  arrival  except  that  it  would 
be  hours  after  the  scheduled  moment.  Yet  these 
were  military  trains  with  preferential  treatment 
as  to  equipment  and  personnel.  What  must  have 
been  the  joys  or  comforts  or  reliability  of  civilian 
trains  inside  Germany? 

But  more  convincing  than  personal  impressions 
are  the  statistics  now  available.  During  the 
month  of  January,  19 14,  the  railways  of  Prussia 
handled  promptly  and  efficiently  219,000  loaded 
freight  cars  a  day;  in  January,  19 18,  they  han- 
dled neither  promptly  nor  efficiently  146,700 
freight  cars,  and  in  January  of  this  year  (1919) 
only  105,200,  or  slightly  less  than  50  per  cent, 
of  the  pre-war  number.  As  to  passenger  cars,  no 
figures  are  available,  but  they  would  show  far 
greater  differences.  To  keep  a  nation  alive  and 
of  the  character  of  a  going  concern,  it  is  much 
more  important  to  move  freight  than  passengers. 
In  January,  19 19,  at  which  time  the  situation  can- 
not have  been  much  worse  than  in  the  last  months 
before  the  Armistice,  the  passenger  express  trains 


48       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

of  Germany  were  but  three  per  cent,  of  the  pre- 
war normal;  the  total  passenger  trains  but  35 
per  cent,  of  the  normal,  and  the  total  freight  trains 
but  42  per  cent,  of  the  normal. 

The  chief  reason  for  the  break-down  in  trans- 
portation was  the  scarcity  of  copper,  tin,  nickel, 
asbestos,  cotton  and  rubber.  The  German  loco- 
motive has  a  copper  fire-box.  When  copper  was 
no  longer  available  for  this  purpose,  iron  fire-boxes 
were  put  in  when  replacement  was  necessary. 
These  could  not  stand  the  heat  and  went  to  pieces 
quickly.  The  lack  of  tin  added  to  the  lack  of 
copper  left  available  only  lead,  zinc,  and  aluminum 
with  which  to  make  friction  metals.  The  best 
combinations  which  the  Germans  were  able  to  per- 
fect would  stand  neither  the  friction  itself  nor  the 
generated  heat  well,  nor  did  they  lubricate  prop- 
erly. In  addition,  the  only  available  lubricating 
oils  themselves  were  of  poor  quality.  The  result 
was  that  bearings  had  to  be  often  replaced  in  the 
journals  and  hot  boxes  were  of  daily  occurrence 
on  almost  every  moving  train.  The  absence  of 
cotton,  asbestos,  rubber  and  copper  made  itself 
keenly  felt  when  it  came  to  trying  to  make  con- 
nections water-  and  steam-tight.     None   of  the 


Other  Inside  Difficulties  49 

substitutes  for  brass  and  asbestos  stood  up,  and 
engines  had  to  be  frequently  sent  In  for  repair 
simply  for  leaks  alone.  The  number  of  engines 
in  the  shops  for  these  repairs  In  pre-war  times 
was  never  beyond  13  per  cent,  of  those  being  used; 
by  the  end  of  1 9 1 7  It  had  reached  33  per  cent.,  and 
In  January,  19 19,  it  was  43  per  cent. 

Altogether,  the  deterioration  of  rolling  stock 
and  the  difficulties  of  repair  because  of  deficiency 
In  materials  and  man-power  must  have  been  a  tre- 
mendous handicap  on  the  German  effort  to  main- 
tain even  their  minimum  necessity  of  transporta- 
tion in  the  latter  period  of  the  war. 

The  coal  shortage  further  added  to  the  general 
transportation  difficulties.  In  addition  it  mili- 
tated against  the  effectiveness  of  all  war-time  in- 
dustry except  actual  government-controlled  war 
industries  themselves,  for  It  was  to  these  industries 
and  to  strictly  military  transportation  that  the 
available  coal  was  first  allocated.  The  lack  of 
coal  for  other  than  the  war  industries  had,  too, 
a  depressing  and  even  seriously  injurious  effect 
on  the  people  as  a  whole  in  their  unheated 
homes,  shops,  offices,  and  public  gathering  places. 
The  cold  was  especially  felt  in  connection  with  the 


50       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

lowered  food  ration  and  insufficient  supply  of 
warm  clothing. 

These  discomforts  of  the  people  for  lack  of 
sufficient  coal  were  real,  but  an  examination  of  the 
available  statistics  of  coal  production  in  Germany 
during  the  four  years  of  war  reveals  the  interest- 
ing fact  that  there  was  practically  no  falling  off  in 
the  number  of  tons  of  coal  annually  mined.  For 
example,  while  the  production  in  19 13  was 
278,000,000  tons,  the  imports  18,000,000  tons, 
and  the  exports  44,000,000  tons,  the  correspond- 
ing figures  for  19 18  are,  275,000,000,  100,600, 
and  16,000,000.  This  last  item  of  16,000,000 
tons  exported  in  19 18  despite  the  urgent  home 
need  requires  explanation.  But  there  is  a  simple 
and  sufficient  one.  Germany  had  to  take  that 
much  coal  out  of  the  amount  it  could  possibly  have 
devoted  to  keeping  its  people  more  comfortable,  in 
order  to  send  it  to  contiguous  neutrals  in  exchange 
for  certain  absolutely  necessary  supplies  of  neu- 
tral origin,  an  exchange  which  the  Allied  blockade 
could  not  wholly  prevent. 

Immediately  after  Armistice  Day,  however, 
when  governmental  internal  control  fell  down  and 
strikes  were  the  order  of  the  day,  the  coal  pro- 


Other  Inside  Difficulties  51 

duction  went  off  rapidly.  In  January  and  Febru- 
ary of  this  year  the  output  of  the  great  Ruhr  dis- 
trict had  fallen  from  the  normal  of  300,000  to 
310,000  tons  a  day  to  quantities  fluctuating  be- 
tween 150,000  to  260,000  tons  a  day.  And  the 
Silesian  normal  output  of  from  120,000  to  130,- 
000  tons  a  day  had  fallen  to  from  32,000  to  60,000 
tons  a  day.  The  official  estimates  for  the  whole 
of  Germany  put  the  production  of  bituminous  coal 
in  January  and  February,  19 19,  at  from  50  per 
cent,  to  60  per  cent,  of  normal.  And  since  that 
time  the  output  percentage  has  fallen  still  lower. 
It  is  interesting  to  note,  as  showing  the  close 
commercial  and  economic  inter-relation  among  the 
adjacent  countries  of  Europe  that  the  people  in 
Switzerland,  Holland  and  Denmark  were  but  lit- 
tle less  cold  and  uncomfortable  in  the  war  winters, 
because  of  the  coal  situation  in  Germany,  than  the 
Germans  themselves.  For  while  Germany  was 
able,  or,  better,  really  had  to  keep  up  a  certain 
export  of  coal  to  these  countries  this  export  was 
much  less  than  normal.  The  16,000,000  tons 
sent  out  in  19 18,  and  the  19,000,000  tons  sent 
out  in  19 1 7  were  much  less  than  the  pre-war  nor- 
mal as  indicated  by  the  figure  of  44,000,000  tons 


^2        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

in  1 9 13.  Not  all  of  the  pre-war  export  went  to 
those  countries  which  in  the  war  were  known  as 
the  contiguous  neutrals,  but  a  large  part  did. 
Switzerland  and  Holland  and  Denmark,  gave  up 
hot  water  baths  and  heated  theaters  and  warm 
houses  to  about  the  same  degree  as  Germany  did. 
There  is  a  pertinent  significance  in  this  fact  to  be 
taken  into  account  in  connection  with  all  attempts 
to  picture  European  conditions  as  they  will  be 
effected  by  a  broken  or  continually  restless  and 
upheaving  Germany. 

The  blockade  and  the  large  withdrawal  of  man- 
power from  those  native  sources  of  raw  materials 
which  were  not  actually  necessary  for  munitions 
and  other  strictly  war  supplies,  combined  to  effect 
to  an  impressive  degree  a  curtailment  of  the  raw 
materials  needed  for  German  industry  and  of  the 
substances  commonly  used  by  the  people  as  every- 
day necessities. 

The  blockade  almost  entirely  cut  off  the  needed 
importations  of  cotton,  wool,  jute,  rubber,  silk, 
and  the  metals  already  referred  to.  This  was 
especially  true  for  the  period  1917-1918;  the 
blockade  was  not  so  effective  before  that  time.  It 
is  reliably  estimated  that  Germany  managed  to 


Other  Inside  Difficulties  53 

get  in,  in  the  three  years  19 16-19 18,  not  more 
than  2  per  cent,  of  her  normal  importations  of 
cotton.  What  an  aching  want  of  cotton  this  re- 
veals. 

Even  as  early  as  the  fall  of  19 15  the  cotton 
substitutes  were  making  their  appearance.  My 
Headquarters  escort  officer  and  I  stopped  one  day 
in  that  autumn  at  Montmedy,  at  that  time  the 
headquarters  of  the  Crown  Prince's  army.  In  a 
hospital  there  I  was  shown  a  fluffy  white  substance 
which  was  being  used  as  bandage  and  sponge  ma- 
terial instead  of  cotton.  It  was  made  from  the 
bark  of  pine  trees.  It  was  soft  and  absorbent 
and  not  a  bad  substitute  for  cotton  in  the  particu- 
lar use  to  which  it  was  being  put.  But  it  was  not 
something  that,  as  my  officer  proudly  put  it,  "  had 
solved  the  cotton  problem."  It  was  only  making 
it  very  clear  that  there  was  already,  after  one  year 
of  war,  a  serious  cotton  problem  in  Germany. 

Germany  obtained  all  through  the  war  a  certain 
amount  of  iron  ore  from  Sweden.  And  her  early 
seizure  of  the  French  Lorraine  iron  basin  gave  her 
an  important  source  of  steel  supply.  But  little  of 
this  steel  was  available  for  any  but  strictly  war 
purposes.     In  peace  time  the  steel  outturn  of  the 


54       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

great  Krupp  factories  for  civil  purposes  is  about 
90  per  cent.;  during  the  war  90  per  cent,  of  its 
outturn  went  for  strictly  war  materials. 

Scarcity  of  such  a  simple  homely  article  as  soap 
can  work  great  discomfort  and  hardship;  indeed 
it  can  be  a  serious  menace  to  good  health  and  to 
personal  morale.  In  time  of  peace  about  400,000 
tons  of  the  fats  and  oils  available  in  Germany 
were  used  annually  for  technical  purposes,  above 
all  for  the  manufacture  of  soap.  Because  of  the 
blockade  not  only  the  greater  part  of  the  fat  im- 
ports ceased,  but  it  became  necessary  to  use  for 
human  alimentation  all  kinds  of  domestic  fats,  in 
so  far  as  they  could  be  adapted  by  processes  of 
refining,  for  that  purpose.  In  November,  19 15, 
it  was  forbidden  to  use  for  technical  purposes  any 
fats  suitable  for  human  consumption. 

By  the  spring  of  19 16  the  fats  available  for 
soap  making  were  so  scarce  as  to  make  controlled 
restriction  and  the  use  of  soap  substitutes  neces- 
sary. While  in  pre-war  times  about  ten  kilograms 
of  laundry  and  toilet  soap  had  been  used  annually 
per  person,  a  ration  of  only  250  grams  a  month 
of  wash-powder,  containing  only  4  per  cent,  of 
fat,  could  be  allowed  for  laundry  use,  and  of  one 


Other  Inside  Difficulties  55 

cake  of  toilet  soap  of  50  grams  consisting  to  the 
extent  of  about  three-quarters  of  clay.  In  Janu- 
ary, 19 1 8,  the  wash-powder  ration  was  reduced  to 
125  grams  a  month.  "  Many  attempts  to  replace 
soap  by  fatless  washing  substances  were  made,  but 
these  preparations  proved  quite  unsuitable  for 
bodily  use,  and  of  a  limited  utility  only  for  laun- 
dry purposes."     The  quotation  is  German  official. 

This  last  quoted  sentence  invites  a  few  further 
remarks  on  the  subject  of  Ersdtze  (substitutes), 
a  word  which  all  through  the  war  was  a  word  of 
boasting  and  now  has  become  a  special  word  of 
confession  and  whining.  The  truth  is  that  the 
substitutes  didn't  substitute.  The  vaunted  Ger- 
man science  and  ingenuity  simply  could  not  make 
the  needed  bricks  without  straw.  Speaking  of 
the  shortage  of  leather  and  textiles  for  clothing, 
the  German  authorities  admit  to-day  that,  despite 
all  attempts,  "  we  have  not  succeeded  up  to  the 
present  day  (January,  1919)  in  supplying  the  civil 
population  with  a  single  really  useful  substitute 
[for  leather  or  textiles].  The  paper  textures 
that  appeared  on  the  market  were,  without  count- 
ing their  high  prices,  a  disappointment." 

And  the  testimony,  both  official  and  unofficial 


56       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

expert,  is  the  same  with  regard  to  substitutes  for 
the  usual  foods  and  metals,  as  well  as  for  leather 
and  the  textiles.  Some  of  these  were  useless  when 
made;  others  more  usable  cost  so  much  in  time, 
materials,  and  labor  as  to  be  unpracticable.  The 
leading  scientific  men  of  Germany  with  whom  we 
talked  admitted  this;  the  people  in  the  street  ad- 
mitted it  with  less  hesitation  and  in  terms  of  no 
dubiety.  The  number  of  these  substitutes  ran 
into  the  thousands ;  they  turn  out  to  have  been  prac- 
tically that  many  disappointments. 


CHAPTER  V 

'     HOW   THE    PEOPLE    WERE    DECEIVED 

These  revelations  of  the  actual  internal  difficul- 
ties of  Germany  during  the  war  help  explain  why 
imperial  Germany  broke.  That  the  actual  col- 
lapse was  immediately  the  result  of  the  decisive 
military  victories  of  the  Allies  in  the  late  summer 
and  autumn  of  191 8,  should  not  prevent  us  from 
recognizing  that  the  break-down  behind  the  lines, 
the  internal  collapse  which  would  itself  have  ended 
the  war  even  in  the  face  of  a  purely  military  stale- 
mate, was  certain  to  come  in  the  spring  of  19 19. 
Despite  Under  Secretary  of  State  von  Braun's 
declaration  to  us  in  February  that  the  collapse  of 
Germany  was  caused  solely,  or  chiefly,  by  the  "  il- 
legal, inhuman,  monstrous  blockade  " —  how  mon- 
strous, incredible,  illegal  and  inhuman  things  are 
when  the  other  fellow  is  doing  them !  —  he  knows 
that  this  is  not  true.  Germany  could  have  stag- 
gered on  until  her  19 18  harvest  was  used  up,  and, 
with  her  armies  holding  in  the  west,  she  would 

57 


58        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

have  done  It;  although  in  fact  It  would  have  been 
only  a  hopeless  staggering,  and  her  few  Informed 
people  knew  It.  But  the  end  really  came  by  a 
white  flag  from  the  General  Staff,  not  the  general 
public.  The  people  were  still  holding  out,  amaz- 
ing. In  the  light  of  what  we  now  know,  as  It  is. 

Indeed  it  is  no  less  than  a  wonder  that  Germany 
was  able  to  go  on  for  as  long  as  she  did.  And 
Germany  herself  now  wonders  how  she  was  able 
to  do  it.  The  explanation  Is  chiefly  one  of  psy- 
chology, of  the  official  and  the  self-deception  of 
nearly  a  whole  people,  and  of  an  almost  super- 
human endurance  of  an  almost  Impossible  situ- 
ation on  the  basis  of  the  promise,  and  a  blind  faith 
in  this  promise,  of  an  early  cessation  of  the  situ- 
ation and  a  complete  compensation  for  the  suffer- 
ings endured.  A  few  Germans  saw  some  time 
before  the  break,  the  reality  of  things  and  the 
certain  disaster  that  Impended  from  this  reality. 
The  principal  organic  chemist,  the  principal  statis- 
tician and  the  principal  agricultural  expert  of  Ger- 
many told  Dr.  Taylor  and  me  that  they  knew,  a 
year  before  the  end,  that  Germany  was  doomed. 
But  these  wise  Germans  were  few  and  they  had  to 
keep  silent.     The  two  or  three  who  did  try  to 


How  the  People  Were  Deceived       59 

speak  up  either  got  quickly  out  of  the  country,  or 
into  prison.  If  there  was  freedom  of  anything  in 
Germany  during  the  war,  it  was  not  freedom  of 
speech. 

One  of  the  most  revealing  books  concerning  the 
internal  situation  in  Germany  during  the  war  time 
is  Kurt  Muehsam's  "  W'le  W'lr  Belogen  Wurden," 
a  fully  documented  account  of  "  the  official  decep- 
tion of  the  German  people  "  by  means  of  the  press 
control.  The  book  was  published  in  Munich  as 
soon  after  the  Armistice  as  it  could  be  put  through 
the  press.  It  is  a  book  of  damning  revelation  of 
German  official  lying,  German  official  stupidity  and 
German  official  culpable  ignorance  of  facts,  and, 
more  important,  of  the  significance  of  facts  known. 
It  helps  reveal  the  singularly  artificial  character 
of  the  control  of  the  German  nation  by  the  rulers 
of  Germany,  a  control  to  which,  nevertheless,  the 
mass  of  the  people  from  ignorant  peasants  to  most 
erudite  of  professors  submitted  tamely  for  amaz- 
ingly long. 

Muehsam  lays  bare  by  actual  citation  and  quo- 
tation the  whole  censor  system,  absurd  In  Its  at- 
tempt to  controvert  all  truth,  criminal  in  its  suc- 
cess of  hiding  sufficient  truth  to  wreck  the  nation. 


6o       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

It  was  a  system  that  went  far  beyond  saying  what 
truth  might  not  be  printed,  for  it  included  saying 
what  untruth  should  be  told. 

For  example,  to  show  its  attitude  towards  a  sin- 
gle critically  important  matter,  on  May  17,  19 18, 
the  official  news  agency  gave  out  for  publication 
in  all  the  newspapers  a  statement  that  "  the  num- 
ber of  American  fighting  troops  in  France  is,  ac- 
cording to  reliable  official  information,  to  be  esti- 
mated at  about  ten  divisions  —  only  four  of  these 
are  at  the  front.  The  total  of  all  those  back  of 
the  lines  as  well  as  in  them  is  at  the  most  from 
150,000  to  200,000  men.  Press  notices  concern- 
ing these  facts  should  state,  therefore,  that  Amer- 
ica has  not  been  able  to  meet  its  expectations  in  the 
way  of  sending  troops,  and  the  earlier  estimates 
of  the  German  General  Staff  as  to  what  America 
could  do  have  proved  to  be  true.  However, 
in  order  not  to  let  the  enemy  know  how  well 
informed  we  are,  the  actual  figures  given 
above  should  under  no  circumstances  be  men- 
tioned! " 

Now  as  a  matter  of  fact  there  were  at  the  time 
this  was  given  out  to  the  German  press  nearly  one 
million  American  troops  in  France.     Was   the 


How  the  People  Were  Deceived       6i 

General  Staff  just  lying  or  was  It  just  ignorant  of 
the  facts?  The  latter  supposition  Is  almost  incon- 
ceivable. In  any  event  the  giving  out  of  this 
false  information  to  the  German  people  was  both 
stupid  and  criminal. 

In  a  remarkable  "  Censor  Book "  Issued  in 
March,  19 17,  general  instructions  including  ex- 
plicit prohibitions  and  recommendations  were 
given  concerning  the  press  treatment  of  a  long 
series  of  subjects  arranged  alphabetically  and  run- 
ning all  the  way  from  "  Aalandfrage  "  to  "  Zen- 
surmassnahmen."  These  presumably  permanent 
instructions  were  added  to  a  thousandfold  by  the 
special  instructions  Issued  constantly  by  a  so- 
called  "  Press  Conferenz,"  which,  beginning  in 
19 14  with  weekly  sittings,  soon  became  an  almost 
continuously  sitting  Institution,  and  In  addition  by 
other  confidential  detailed  Instructions  with  re- 
gard to  particular  matters  of  the  minute  which 
were  constantly  issued  by  no  less  than  a  score  of 
separate  official  bureaus  and  war  offices. 

The  Censor  Book,  under  the  head  "  Lebens- 
m'tttel,"  forbade  the  publication  of  any  declara- 
tions or  suppositions  that  "  our  economic  hold- 
ing out  may  not  be  possible."     It  also  forbade  the 


62        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

comic  papers  from  making  the  food  shortage  the 
subject  of  jests. 

Under  "  Zensurmassnahmen  "  it  was  forbidden 
to  print  any  news  concerning  any  measures  taken 
to  enforce  the  censorship !  In  a  word,  in  the  face 
of,  and  by  means  of  what  was  notoriously  the 
most  radical  and  criminal  censorship  ever  insti- 
tuted it  was  attempted  to  cover  up  the  fact  of  any 
censorship  at  all. 

On  September  22,  19 14,  just  after  the  first  bat- 
tle of  the  Marne,  the  ''  Press  Conferenz  "  gave 
out  to  the  newspapers  and  the  people  of  Germany 
the  following  announcement: 

"  The  general  military  situation  in  the  West  is 
good.  No  retreat  or  backward  push  has  taken 
place  as  a  result  of  any  tactical  advantage  of  the 
enemy.  Our  movements  were  entirely  of  stra- 
tegic nature  for  the  preparation  of  new  successes 
and  were  not  forced  by  the  enemy." 

On  the  next  day  this  general  thesis  was  repeated 
with  certain  interesting  additions  —  amazingly 
absurd  additions,  as  a  matter  of  fact  —  one  of 
them  being  a  prohibition  to  the  press  to  say  any- 
thing about  the  backward  movement  of  the  Ger- 
man troops  "  in  order  that  the  enemy  may  be  left 


How  the  People  Were  Deceived       63 

in  his  present  embarrassing  great  uncertainty  " 
about  these  movements ! 

When  the  Luxburg  '^  Fersenkt  ohne  Spur"  af- 
fair was  a  few  days  old,  the  worried  Berhn  For- 
eign Office  issued  a  rather  petulant  special  instruc- 
tion to  the  press  to  the  effect  that  although  the 
Entente  was  continuing  to  publish  new  telegrams 
the  Foreign  Office  wished  all  references  to  the 
Luxburg  affair  to  "  disappear  from  the  German 
press  once  and  for  all."  On  March  16,  19 17, 
the  press  was  giv^en  the  statement  that  the  in- 
juries to  the  German  ships  in  American  harbors 
had  been  successfully  accomplished.  "  For  exam- 
ple, the  giant  steamer  Vaterland  had  been  made 
completely  unusable  for  America."  On  July  27, 
19 17,  the  press  was  notified  that  it  should  refer 
to  Russia  as  still  a  brave  antagonist.  "  The  suc- 
cesses of  our  troops  are  much  depreciated  if  our 
press  continues  to  speak  of  the  Russian  Army  as 
without  strength  or  power  of  resistance  " ;  which 
was  exactly  its  condition  at  this  time. 

On  August  29,  191 8,  a  long  instruction  to  the 
press  was  issued  announcing  the  retirement  from 
the  Marne  for  ten  to  twelve  kilometers  of  Boehn's 
Army,  but  forbidding  any  immediate  publication 


64        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

of  the  fact.  The  news  was  told  the  press  so  that 
preparation  could  be  made  "  if  the  Entente  should 
announce  this  retreat  as  a  great  success,  as  was 
probable,"  to  meet  "  the  urgent  necessity  through 
the  press  of  creating  a  proper  understanding  and 
of  quieting  the  public."  It  was  further  stated 
to  the  press  that  the  Marne  operations  had  re- 
sulted in  a  failure  both  on  the  German  and  En- 
tente sides  to  carry  out  the  planned  movements 
but  "  in  any  discussion  of  the  situation  the  failure 
on  the  German  side  is  not  to  be  mentioned  while 
that  of  the  Entente  is  to  be  strongly  brought  out 
and  emphasized." 

But  we  cannot  dig  farther  into  this  mine  of 
decaying  "  blood  and  iron."  The  odor  is  too  re- 
pellent. This  is  not  simply  censorship;  it  is  pre- 
meditated official  deception  of  a  whole  people. 
The  German  authorities  cannot  have  understood 
the  great  risk  in  it.  They  seemed  to  have  be- 
lieved that  if  they  could  carry  on  for  the  day,  the 
morrow  could  be  met  when  it  came. 

We  know  censorship,  and  do  not  like  it;  and 
so  do  the  English  and  the  French  people  know  it 
and  dislike  it.  One  country  may  make  use  of  it 
more  than  another.     But  there  is  more  than  a 


How  the  People  Were  Deceived       65 

quantitative  difference  between  the  censorships  we 
know  and  this  German  one;  there  is  a  qualitative 
difference.  One  country  may  not  allow  its  news- 
papers to  print  the  enemy  communiques.  The 
German  newspapers  had  to  print  them  with  ad- 
ditions or  subtractions  that  made  them  tell,  as  of 
enemy  origin,  the  lies  that  the  German  authorities 
wished  to  tell  their  people.  The  official  deception 
of  the  German  people  by  the  German  rulers 
through  all  the  long  war  agony  was  not  the  least 
of  the  crimes  of  imperial  Germany,  nor  was  it  the 
least  of  the  means  whereby  the  German  nation 
was  led  to  ruin. 


CHAPTER  VI 

WHAT    THE    GERMANS    THOUGHT    DURING   THE 
WAR   AND   ARMISTICE 

The  press  Is  reputed  to  be  the  voice  of  the 
people,  and  many  of  us  read  the  German  news- 
papers assiduously  through  the  war  and  armistice 
period  in  the  hope  of  learning  just  what  the  Ger- 
man people  were  thinking  and  saying.  But 
Muehsam  has  shown  us  that  during  the  war  pe- 
riod, at  least,  it  was  their  masters'  voice,  not  their 
own,  that  came  from  the  printing  presses.  It  was 
in  truth  a  gramaphone  we  were  hearing  reading 
out  from  the  prepared  records  the  dictations  of 
General  Staff,  Foreign  Office,  Press  Conferenz, 
and  all  the  rest.  So  despite  an  occasional  revela- 
tion in  Die  Zukunft,  Berliner  Tageblatt,  Leipziger 
Volkstimme,  Miinchner  Post,  and  similar  socialist 
or  liberal  journals,  which  preferred  to  accept  an 
occasional  suppression  rather  than  be  completely 
tongue-tied  as  regards  truth-speaking,  we  learned 
little  from  the  German  press  of  what  the  German 

66 


What  the  Germans  Thought  67 

people  were  thinking  or  were  saying  among  them- 
selves In  whispers. 

But  there  were  a  few  Americans  In  such  situ- 
ations as  enabled  them  to  hear  the  actual  voices 
of  some  of  the  German  people.  Mr.  Gerard  In 
Berlin  and  Mr.  Whitlock  In  occupied  Brussels 
heard  something  of  what  the  government  officials 
had  to  say  In  moments  when  they  were  not  too 
consciously  speaking  to  the  public,  and  I  had 
some  unusual  opportunities  at  Great  Headquar- 
ters In  19 1 5  and  19 16  to  hear  an  occasional 
straight  word  from  the  staff  officers  with  whom  I 
necessarily  came  Into  contact.  Also  I  heard  oc- 
casionally some  even  stralghter  words  from  the 
orderlies  of  these  officers  and  from  petty  officers 
and  soldiers  at  the  Headquarters.  One  thing  was 
noticeable;  the  speech  of  the  orderlies  and  soldiers 
while  In  the  earlier  months  of  the  war  as  vain- 
glorious as  that  of  the  officers,  grew  to  be  differ- 
ent, even  very  different. 

Their  letters  from  home  made  impressions  on 
them  that  their  simple  minds  could  not  but  reflect. 
And  these  impressions  did  not  make  for  happiness 
or  boasting.  They  learned  that  things  were  go- 
ing badly  at  home ;  that  their  wives  and  children 


68       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

were  suffering  even  though  no  foreign  foe  was 
burning  their  houses,  looting  their  shops,  pos- 
sessing their  fields  or  outraging  their  women. 
And  these  orderlies  and  soldiers,  many  of  them 
at  least,  were  not  too  long  in  understanding  that 
while  the  army  was  winning  victories,  Germany 
was  not  winning  the  war,  certainly  not,  at  least, 
with  the  rapidity  that  had  been  assured  them. 

I  remember  one  old  Landsturmer  who,  in  his 
capacity  of  guard  at  a  little  bridge,  stopped  my 
motor  to  examine  my  pass.  He  had  just  heard 
of  the  break  in  diplomatic  relations  between  Ger- 
many and  America,  and  misunderstood  it  to  be 
the  American  declaration  of  war. 

"  So,"  he  grunted,  "  you  are  going  to  fight  us. 
Well,  I'm  glad.  You  will  win,  and  that  will  end 
it.     We  want  it  to  end." 

During  19 1 5  every  one  at  Headquarters  —  ex- 
cept the  unfortunate  French  villagers  of  the  town 
and  the  neutral  Americans  of  the  Relief  Commis- 
sion —  was  radiant  and  boastful.  It  was  taking 
a  little  more  time  and  exertion  to  make  the  win- 
ning than  had  been  counted  on,  but  victory  was 
certain;  it  was  almost  in  sight.  And  this  feeling 
lasted  until  the  first  of  July,  19 16.     The  officers 


What  the  Germans  Thought  69 

I  had  to  be  with  were  almost  unendurable  in  their 
high  spirits,  their  strutting  and  boasting,  their 
insolent  references  to  America's  hold-off  policy  — 
easily  explained  by  our  cowardice  and  selfishness. 
But  one  day  in  the  first  week  of  July,  19 16,  on  a 
trip  of  inspection  of  the  relief  work,  on  which  an- 
other American  of  the  Relief  Commission  and 
myself  were  escorted  by  three  German  officers  of 
the  Headquarters  Staff,  we  pushed  as  far  west  as 
Coucy  le  Chateau  where  we  opened  our  luncheon 
baskets  at  the  foot  of  the  noble  tower  of  the  old 
chateau  ruins.  They  were  not  the  utter  ruins, 
it  may  be  remarked  in  parentheses,  that  they  are 
now. 

As  we  munched  our  war-bread  and  Leherwurst 
we  heard  the  constant  rumble  of  a  heavy  cannon- 
ading along  the  front  to  our  west.  It  even  inter- 
rupted our  conversation.  That  is,  the  officers  oc- 
casionally and  rather  nervously  checked  them- 
selves in  mid-sentence  to  glance  at  each  other  and 
mutter,  "Heavy,  unusually  heavy;  the  damned 
English  are  getting  more  wasteful."  Talk  about 
the  history  of  the  chateau  and  the  German  vic- 
tories in  the  east  faded  away.  They  were  too 
much  interested  in  the  significant  rumble. 


70        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

So  after  luncheon  we  climbed  the  long  spiral 
stair  in  the  tower  wall  to  the  summit  to  see  what 
we  could  of  what  was  going  on.  We  had  a  most 
extended  panorama  of  the  West  Front  all  the  way 
from  Noyon  to  Soissons.  All  along  this  line  there 
was  the  smoke  of  bursting  heavy  shells;  it  was 
really  a  bombardment  on  a  grand  scale;  an  enor- 
mous quantity  of  shell  was  being  hurled  into  the 
German  lines  by  hundreds  of  heavy  cannon.  If 
it  were  not  the  prelude  of  an  extensive  serious  of- 
fensive, It  was  at  any  rate  a  proof  that  the  Allies 
had  finally  succeeded  in  so  developing  their  mu- 
nitions output  that  they  could  play  with  equal  ex- 
travagance the  German  game  of  artillery  prepara- 
tion and  offensive. 

Our  officers  did  not  like  the  looks  of  it.  They 
became  gloomy,  grouchy.  We  made  the  long 
journey  back  to  Headquarters  mostly  in  silence. 
And  that  evening  at  dinner  and  after  when  the 
news  of  what  was  really  going  on  at  the  front  had 
come  in  by  radio  and  telegraph  and  telephone, 
for  there  was  much  of  it,  they  began  whining. 
"  How  can  we  expect  to  win  with  America  fur- 
nishing the  Allies  enormous  quantities  of  muni- 
tions?    What  can  we  do  with  all  the  world  against 


What  the  Germans  Thought  Jl 

us?  Why  is  this  universal  hate  of  Germany?  " 
It  was  an  amazing  change  from  the  boasting  of 
the  day  and  days  before.  And  it  all  came  from 
the  first  day's  artillery  preparation  for  the  first 
Somme  offensive  —  from  that  and  from  the  yel- 
low streak  that  the  buttoned-up  field-gray  blouses 
had  up  to  now  concealed  from  view. 

After  July,  191 6,  the  tide  of  war  ebbed  and 
flowed,  and  as  it  changed  the  German  officers 
boasted  or  whined.  When  the  fateful  day  in 
1 9 17  came  on  which  America  broke  off  diplo- 
matic relations  with  Germany,  the  German  Gen- 
eral Staff  had  a  shock.  It  was  very  angry;  angry 
with  America  and  angry  with  "  the  stupid  pigs  " 
of  statesmen  and  diplomats  in  Berlin  who  had  al- 
lowed matters  to  come  to  such  a  pass.  But  they 
had  certain  hopes.  Baron  von  der  Lancken,  po- 
litical head  of  von  Bissing's  government  of  Bel- 
gium, said  to  me  on  the  afternoon  of  my  last  day 
in  Brussels  —  it  was  in  the  middle  of  March  three 
weeks  before  we  were  at  war  with  Germany: 
"This  is  a  sad  state  of  affairs;  we  should  never 
have  allowed  it  to  come  about.  Of  course,  it 
means  war.  But  I  cannot  believe  that  there  will 
ever  be  such  feeling  or  such  war  between  America 


72       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

and  Germany  as  exists  between  England  and  Ger- 
many. We  may,  indeed,  may  we  not,  hope  for  a 
more  platonic  war?  " 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Germans  believed 
we  should  never  really  enter  the  war  against  them. 
We  had  waited  so  long;  they  had  already  done 
so  many  things  to  us  that  Germany  would  never 
have  tolerated  having  us  do  to  them  that 
they  had  put  us  down  as  too  cowardly  and  selfish 
to  spend  lives  and  money  in  war  against  them. 
We  were  safe  over  there  across  the  ocean.  And 
we  were  making  money  in  provisioning  the  Allies 
with  food  and  material.  The  German  General 
Staff  and  Berlin  were  sure  we  would  never  come 
in,  and  the  German  people  were  sure  of  it  because 
they  were  told  so  over  and  over  again  by  the  men 
who  knew. 

And  then  after  we  were  in  they  were  told  over 
and  over  again  that  we  would  not  count.  The  in- 
structions to  the  German  press  about  our  troop 
landings,  quoted  in  the  last  chapter,  are  examples 
of  this.  At  first  the  General  Staff  really  believed 
that  we  would  not  count  seriously;  they  relied  on 
our  unpreparedness,  our  lack  of  a  trained  army, 
and  the  enormous  difficulty,  even  with  free  use  of 


What  the  Germans  Thought  73 

the  ocean,  of  carrying  overseas  a  sufficiently  large 
force  with  continuing  necessities  in  the  way  of 
food  and  munitions  in  great  quantity;  and  then 
there  was  the  increased  difficulty  of  doing  this  in 
face  of  submarine  attack  to  count  on;  and  finally 
they  were  sure  that  even  if  we  were  able  to  get 
over  at  all  we  could  not  do  It  in  time  to  save  the 
situation. 

But  first  the  General  Staff,  and  then,  gradually 
and  despite  all  attempts  to  prevent  it,  the  people, 
learned  the  disturbing  news  of  the  American 
coming  to  France.  From  the  German  soldiers  on 
the  West  Front  who  began  to  meet  American  sol- 
diers all  up  and  down  the  line  and  to  learn  by 
sad  experience  their  eagerness  and  unmistakable 
capacity  for  fighting,  the  news  got  back  to  the 
people.  And  the  realization  of  what  this  Ameri- 
can coming  really  meant,  and  the  bitterness  at  the 
deception  that  had  covered  it  up  were  not  con- 
ducive to  strengthening  the  hold  on  the  people, 
in  these  increasingly  difficult  days,  of  the  German 
court  and  military  rulers. 

As  I  have  said,  we  were  told  in  Berlin  In  Febru- 
ary of  this  year  by  three  of  the  best  known  scien- 
tific men  of  Germany  that  they  knew  long  before 


74       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

the  break-down  came  that  it  was  Inevitable. 
When  we  asked  these  men  why  they  had  not  cried 
this  aloud  to  the  people,  so  as  to  save  further 
bloodshed  and  national  exhaustion,  they  said  sim- 
ply: "We  should  not  have  been  heard.  At  first 
the  people  would  not  have  believed  us,  and  before 
we  could  make  them  believe  we  should  have  dis- 
appeared, either  In  prison  or  as  refugees  forced 
to  escape  from  the  country.  Remember  NIcolal 
and  Forster  and  Muehlon." 

It  Is  true  that  Germany  was  no  place  In  19 17 
and  19 1 8  for  truth-telling.  Muehlon,  the  ex-dl- 
rector  of  Krupp's,  had  fled  to  Switzerland  for 
speaking  out  some  unpalatable  truths.  We  saw 
him  In  Berne  a  few  weeks  after  the  Armistice. 
He  was  Interesting  himself  In  the  possibility  of 
obtaining  food  relief  for  Germany,  and  had  a 
moving  tale  to  tell  of  the  serious  situation.  He 
saw  the  food  control  disappearing  and  at  the  same 
time  the  food  stocks  also  going.  Spring  would 
bring  the  people  face  to  face  with  starvation.  But 
even  as  he  revealed  the  desperate  brokenness  of 
Germany,  and  asked  for  help,  he  flashed  out  now 
and  then  with  characteristic  German  insolence,  a 
boast  or  a  challenge. 


What  the  Germans  Thought  75 

"  You  must  be  careful,"  he  declared;  "  you 
must  not  treat  Germany  too  hard;  you  cannot 
push  us  too  far.  The  world  must  reckon  with 
Germany's  intrinsic  greatness;  it  must  not  over- 
look the  importance  of  her  Kultur,  her  science 
and  her  art;  the  world  will  always  need  Ger- 
many." 

And  then  with  equally  characteristic  naivete  and 
utter  lack  of  comprehension  of  the  realities  ex- 
ternal to  himself  and  Germany  he  asked  —  and 
this  only  a  month  after  the  bloody  fighting  in  the 
Argonne  —  if  we  did  not  think  it  an  auspicious 
time  to  institute  a  propaganda  among  the  chil- 
dren of  America  to  collect  funds  for  the  feeding 
of  the  children  of  Germany,  as  we  of  the  C.R.B. 
had  done  so  successfully  in  earlier  days  for  Bel- 
gium ! 

That  is  one  of  the  difficult  things  in  understand- 
ing the  thoughts  and  talk  of  the  people  and  of  the 
rulers  of  Germany  since  the  end  of  the  fighting 
period.  They  themselves  do  not  understand  the 
thoughts  of  other  peoples  about  Germany  and 
German  ways.  And  hence  German  thinking  and 
expression  since  Armistice  Day  are  based  on  ac- 
cepted premises  concerning  their  own  position  and 


76        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

concerning  our  position  that  we  cannot  understand 
as  acceptable. 

We  believe  that  Germany  was  beaten  in  a  mili- 
tary way  and  that  her  military  leaders  so  fully 
recognized  this  as  to  lead  them  to  know  that  the 
only  means  of  saving  their  armies  from  complete 
slaughter  or  complete  surrender  as  prisoners  was 
to  ask  for  an  armistice;  which  was,  in  effect,  an  ac- 
knowledgment of  defeatbut  an  escape  from  the  full 
consequences  of  defeat.  But  the  German  people 
as  a  whole  do  not  by  any  means  share  this  belief. 

Returning  from  Berlin  to  Paris  in  February  I 
found  myself  alone  in  a  compartment  on  the  train 
from  Cologne  to  Spa  with  a  German  locomotive 
engineer  on  his  way  to  help  advise  the  German 
armistice  commission  about  the  delivery  of  rail- 
way engines  and  cars  to  the  Allies.  He  was  an 
unusually  Intelligent  man,  or  seemed  so,  and  was 
very  frank  in  his  talk. 

We  were  discussing  the  German  revolution. 
He  agreed  that  It  was  a  good  thing  for  Germany; 
it  had  to  come;  the  old  regime  had  to  go;  the  time 
had  certainly  come  for  It  to  go. 

"  But,"  he  added,  "  what  a  pity  they  didn't  put 
off  the  revolution  a  little  longer." 


What  the  Germans  Thought  77 

"Why?"  I  asked. 

"  Why,  because  we  should  have  won  the  war 
soon,  and  then  we  should  have  been  in  so  much 
better  shape.  You  know,  we  were  not  beaten  in 
a  mihtary  way.  It  was  just  our  break-down  be- 
hind the  lines." 

And  he  then,  unintentionally,  gave  some  proof 
of  the  conditions  "  behind  the  lines,"  when  he 
paid  ten  marks  to  a  passing  Scots  soldier  for  a 
cake  of  Sunlight  soap.  The  occupying  troops 
along  the  Rhine  can  pay  many  bills  with  a  few 
bars  of  soap.     That  is  one  thing  the  blockade  did. 

But  the  idea  that  Germany  was  not  beaten  by 
arms  is  not  limited  to  the  man  in  the  street.  In 
a  speech  before  the  National  Assembly  at  Wei- 
mar, a  Minister  of  the  Majority  Socialist  govern- 
ment was  interrupted  by  clamorous  approval  when 
he  declared :     "  We  were  not  beaten ;  we  gave  up." 

For  the  sake  of  stopping  further  bloodshed  in 
Europe,  and  to  end  the  privation  and  suffering  of 
the  civil  population  of  Germany,  the  unbeaten 
army  of  Germany  "  gave  up  " ! 

So  all  through  the  armistice  period  while  the 
German  people  knew  that  they  were  badly  broken, 
that  their  industries  were  almost  at  a  standstill, 


yS       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

that  they  had  not  enough  food  to  eat,  with  a 
prospect  of  having  less  before  their  19 19  harvest 
came  in,  that  their  rail  transportation  was  so  mis- 
erably insufficient  that  a  simple  journey  from  Ber- 
lin to  Munich  was  to  be  looked  on  as  an  under- 
taking of  such  difficulty  and  discomfort  as  to  be 
avoided  unless  absolutely  necessary,  that  their  coal 
supply  was  so  reduced  that  they  must  get  on  with 
little  heat  and  light,  that  they  must  wear  paper 
clothing  and  wooden  shoes,  and  that  for  all  of 
this  there  could  be  no  relief  except  by  the  benevo- 
lence of  their  enemies  or  by  the  fear  of  these 
enemies  that  a  too-miserable  Germany  might  be 
a  danger  to  the  stabihty  of  their  own  governments 
—  despite  all  this,  the  German  people  would  not 
accept  the  knowledge  that  their  armies  had  been 
beaten  by  the  armies  of  the  Entente.  Their  sol- 
diers had  stopped  fighting  for  reasons  of  discretion 
but  they  had  come  home  unconquered.  It  re- 
quired the  hard  terms  of  armistice  and  peace  that 
followed  and  annihilated  these  armies  within  the 
very  heart  of  their  untouched  country  to  shake  the 
confidence  of  the  Germans  in  their  delusion. 


CHAPTER  VII 

GERMANY   NOW   AND   TO-MORROW 

The  peace  has  come !  Seven  months  have 
passed  since  Armistice  Day.  The  material  condi- 
tions of  Germany  have  not  changed  much  in  this 
time;  certainly  they  have  not  changed  much  for  the 
better.  Some  food  has  gone  into  the  country  — 
and  has  been  eaten  as  rapidly  as  it  arrived.  Some 
commercial  agents  of  various  countries,  enemy 
as  well  as  neutral,  have  arrived,  but  the  arrange- 
ments with  them  are,  at  best,  tentative.  The  out- 
come of  these  arrangements  depends  on  various 
variables,  the  final  influence  of  any  one  of  which 
can  only  be  guessed  at  now.  The  commercial 
blockade  has  been  maintained;  the  slight  relaxa- 
tion of  it  has  only  been  for  the  sake  of  keeping 
the  people  alive,  not  for  the  sake  of  beginning 
Germany's  industrial  rehabilitation.  The  out- 
standing interest  and  activity  of  the  seven  months 
since  last  November  have  been  political;  struggle 
for  and   against  the   government   set  up  by  the 

79 


So       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

Revolution;  intriguing  and  fighting  by  Independ- 
ent Socialists  and  Spartacists;  watchful  waiting 
and  subterranean  mining  by  Royalists  and  reac- 
tionaries ;  thoughtful  weighing  of  advantages  and 
chances  by  Separatists  in  Bavaria  and  the  Rhine- 
land  and  elsewhere.  There  has  been  little  ac- 
complished along  lines  other  than  political.  In- 
deed, under  the  circumstances,  with  the  peace  set- 
tlement always  hanging  fire,  there  could  be  little. 
Only  politics  can  be  played  to  much  advantage 
in  such  a  situation.  So  politics  —  and  finding 
something  to  eat  —  have  been  the  German  pre- 
occupations of  the  last  half  year. 

But  it  is  of  importance  to  us,  and  even  more 
to  that  part  of  the  world  nearer  Germany,  to  know 
all  that  can  be  known  of  Germany's  actual  ma- 
terial condition  to-day.  We  need  to  know  this  to 
know  what  Germany  can  do  and  to  guess  at  what 
she  is  really  going  to  do  to-morrow.  For  despite 
all  the  drastic  conditions  of  the  Versailles  peace 
Germany  is  not  dismembered,  not  extinguished. 
She  is  a  living  nation  of  sixty  million  people  with 
a  tradition  and  habit  of  hard  work,  of  inter- 
national commercial  relations,  of  highly  developed 
industry  based  on  scientific  method,  attention  to 


Germany  Now  and  To-Morrow        8i 

detail  and  disregard  of  morals;  In  a  word,  bent  on 
success  as  an  Industrial  and  commercial  competi- 
tor of  other  nations. 

German  business  men  and  commercial  experts, 
between  expressions  of  horror,  Indignation  and 
profanity  concerning  the  peace  requirements,  have 
taken  pen  in  hand  to  write  reassuring  articles  in 
Berlin  and  Frankfort  newspapers  about  Ger- 
many's business  opportunities  in  the  future.  Al- 
though Germany  has  not  won  political  domina- 
tion of  Eastern  Europe  she  can  still  count  on  com- 
mercial domination  of  it,  say  these  German  busi- 
ness men.  Her  goods  and  her  trade  are  as  es- 
sential to  Poland  and  Russia  and  the  Balkans  as 
they  ever  were,  or  as  they  could  ever  be  even 
with  political  control  over  these  countries.  These 
peoples  have  to  have  Germany;  let  us  get  the 
peace  and  let  them  get  their  boundaries  fixed  and 
their  governments  going,  and  then  we  can  go 
after  their  business.  We  may  have  lost  the  war 
for  the  ownership  of  the  East,  but  we  have  not  lost 
our  opportunity  for  commercial  domination  of 
It.  The  countries  and  the  backward  peoples  are 
still  there,  these  pastoral  and  agricultural  folk 
who  have  to  get  their  manufactured  things  and 


82        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

fertilizers  and  dyes  and  medicines  and  all  the  rest 
from  outside  their  boundaries.  They  have  to 
have  Germany  just  as  much  as,  and  perhaps  more 
than,  ever.  That  is  the  kind  of  comfort  In  these 
sore  hours  of  surprise,  dismay.  Indignation  and 
vituperation,  that  not  a  few  German  traders  have 
been  able  to  find. 

Well,  it  is  encouraging  comfort  for  us,  too. 
For  we  prefer  to  see  Germany  planning  commer- 
cial conquest  rather  than  military  conquest.  We 
do  not  like  fighting  so  much,  despite  our  taste  of 
success  in  it,  that  we  want  to  go  at  It  again  soon. 
And  Germany  planning  to  trade  with  the  Balkans 
is  not  disquieting  to  us;  and  ought  not  to  be  for 
anybody  else.  Only  let  Germany  stick  to  trade 
this  time  —  and  forget  Berlin  to  Bagdad. 

In  the  meantime  what  Is  Germany's  situation 
at  this  time  of  making  a  new  beginning  with  her 
industry  and  commerce?  Where  does  she  stand 
after  five  years  of  blockade  and  commercial  isola- 
tion? 

At  the  time  of  the  outbreak  of  the  war  Ger- 
many had,  as  all  the  world  knows,  a  great  and 
rapidly  growing  International  commerce.  She 
was,  it  seemed,  well  on  the  way  to  outstrip  all 


Germany  Now  and  To-Morrow        83 

competitors.  Why  did  she  attempt  a  world  con- 
quest by  war  when  she  had  a  world  conquest  by 
commerce  apparently  certain?  I  used  to  ask  this 
question  at  Great  Headquarters.  The  answer 
I  got  was  the  shallow  clever  one:  "Exactly; 
that  proves,  doesn't  it,  that  it  was  not  we  who 
started  the  war  or  wanted  war.  We  were  al- 
ready winning  over  France  and  England  in  the 
race  for  world-power.  Why  should  we  risk  the 
chance  of  war?  " 

Echo  murmurs,  "  Why?  " 

Perhaps  no  one,  not  even  those  Germans  who 
did  want  war  and  compelled  war,  can  answer  sat- 
isfactorily. Perhaps  the  very  taste  of  success- 
ful conquest  by  commerce  was  like  the  rank  savor 
of  warm  blood  to  the  carnivore,  exciting  the  ap- 
petite. Perhaps  conquest  by  commerce,  swiftly 
as  it  was  really  moving,  seemed  irritatingly  slow 
compared  to  the  possibilities  of  possession  by 
war.  Perhaps  it  is  all  to  be  referred  for  answer 
to  that  convenient  escape  from  answer,  the 
extraordinary,  the  unfathomable  German  psy- 
chology. 

At  any  rate,  whether  we,  or  Germany,  can  an- 
swer this  conundrum,  or  not,  our  other  queries 


84        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

touching  the  actual  situation  which  faces  Ger- 
many about  to  begin  again  the  long  climb  uphill, 
and  the  probabilities  of  her  manner  and  rate  of 
ascent,  are  capable  of  more  promising  considera- 
tion. We  may  be  able  to  find  answers  to  these 
queries  that  will  have  some  degree  of  correct- 
ness, because  there  are  certain  ascertainable  facts 
to  start  from. 

In  the  first  place  Germany's  food  outlook  for 
the  coming  harvest  year  must  be  considered,  as 
daily  bread  is  requisite  for  daily  toil,  whether  in 
factory  or  counting  house.  In  shop  or  govern- 
ment bureau;  or.  Indeed,  on  the  very  farm  Itself 
where  the  food  is  produced. 

The  outlook  for  this  year's  grain  crop  Is  not  bad. 
It  Is  perhaps  not  as  good  as  It  was  earlier  In  the 
summer,  for  there  was  bad  weather  In  May,  but  if 
there  is  85  per  cent,  of  a  normal  crop  —  and  the 
German  authorities  insist  that  nothing  better  than 
that  can  be  hoped  for  because  of  the  lessened 
acreage  planted,  the  lessened  man-power  avail- 
able and  the  lack  of  fertilizers  —  it  would  not  re- 
quire an  impossibly  large  importation  of  grain 
and  fats,  to  maintain  a  fairly  sufficient  working 
ration  for  all  the  people  through  all  the  coming 


Germany  Now  and  To-Morrow        85 

year.  The  German  food  controller,  Schmidt, 
thinks  that,  with  any  sort  of  effective  government 
in  the  saddle,  he  can  lay  his  hands  on  at  least 
two-thirds  of  the  crop,  for  official  rationing  to 
the  people;  the  other  third  will  partly  be  fed  to 
animals  by  the  farmers,  and  partly  escape  into  the 
hands  of  the  illegal  food-trade,  the  Schleich- 
handel.  But  even  thus  out  of  control  it  will, 
at  least,  find  its  way  into  the  mouths  of  men  and 
stock. 

If  a  million,  or  better  one  and  a  half  million  tons 
of  bread  grains  (wheat  and  rye)  can  be  im- 
ported —  and  with  America's  enormous  wheat  crop 
to  draw  on,  plus  what  Is  available  from  Argen- 
tina and  Australia  that  ought  to  be  easily  possible 
—  a  sufficient,  if  not  extravagant,  bread  ration  can 
be  assured. 

It  Is  not  so  promising  as  to  potatoes.  Posen 
has  been  the  greatest  potato-producing  part  of 
Germany,  but  Posen  has  a  new  name  now  —  or 
rather  an  old  one  restored.  It  Is  Posnania  again; 
Polish  Posnania.  This  means  a  distinct  lessening 
of  the  German  potato  supply,  although  It  may 
well  be  that  Poland  can  sell  some  of  Its  Posnanlan 
potatoes  to  the  German  government  —  at  a  price. 


86        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

This  matter  of  price,  not  only  of  potatoes,  but 
of  bread  and  meat,  of  all  food,  Indeed,  is  going 
to  be  one  of  the  looming  subjects  of  difficulty  and 
discussion  among  all  the  German  people  all 
through  the  coming  year,  as  where  is  it  not  a 
looming  subject.  The  fixed  price  for  wheat  to  be 
paid  the  German  producer  has  been,  during  the 
past  year,  but  little  over  a  dollar  a  bushel.  But 
with  a  fixed,  or,  rather,  minimum  price  for  Ameri- 
can wheat  of  more  than  two  dollars  a  bushel  on 
the  farm,  and  with  an  as  yet  Indeterminate,  but 
certainly  pretty  serious  cost  of  transportation  from 
Iowa  to  Hamburg,  how  is  the  German  govern- 
ment going  to  hold  the  German  farmer  down  to 
receiving  but  a  dollar  for  his  wheat  and  rye, 
when  it  is  paying  two  or  three  times  as  much  for 
the  necessary  importations.  If  they  do  not  pay 
the  German  farmers  more  these  farmers  will  not 
be  very  enthusiastic  about  planting  next  spring;  if 
they  do  pay  them  more  the  price  of  bread  to  the 
factory  workman  is  going  to  be  a  simple,  but  ef- 
fective, argument  for  Bolshevism. 

The  meat  supply  is  bound  to  be  low;  Germany 
has  had  no  concentrated  feeds  to  fatten  her  ani- 
mals, although  there  is  forage  enough  from  this 


Germany  Now  and  To-Morrow        87 

year's  crop  to  carry  the  animals  alive  through  the 
winter.  The  German  herds  have  not  been  greatly 
reduced,  the  reduction  being  nothing  like,  for  ex- 
ample, that  of  the  French  herds,  but  the  milch  cat- 
tle are  giving  only  about  one-half  the  normal 
milk  yield;  this  because  of  lack  of  concentrates. 
However,  the  opening  of  the  North  and  Baltic 
Seas  again  to  the  German  fishermen  will  help 
out  in  the  meat  difficulty,  and  the  ability  to  trade 
freely  with  Denmark  and  Holland  will  help  out 
in  the  line  of  dairy  products.  Germany  will  have 
vegetables  and  fruits  enough  to  get  along  with, 
and  her  native  sugar  production  will  be  sufficient  to 
provide  a  reasonable  ration,  even  though  it  will 
take  more  than  next  year  to  get  back  to  the  old 
exporting  basis. 

Altogether,  Germany,  with  its  ports  open  to 
importations  and  with  a  financial  arrangement 
sufficiently  generous  on  the  part  of  foreign  export- 
ers, ought  to  be  on  a  sufficiently  sound  food  basis 
to  begin  its  uphill  climb  without  facing  the  starva- 
tion specter  whose  presence  would  mean  no  climb- 
ing at  all. 

But  food  is  only  the  beginning.  One  cannot 
work  without  food,  but  neither  can  one  without 


88        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

raw  materials  to  work  with,  equipped  factories 
to  work  in,  men  to  do  the  work,  and  markets  for 
the  output.  What  is  the  present  situation  in  Ger- 
many as  regards  these  conditions? 

Germany's  war  chest  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war  contained  more  than  money.  There  was  in 
it  a  good  supply  of  the  raw  materials  of  war,  such 
as  copper,  nickel,  tin,  asbestos,  rubber,  and  cotton, 
and  the  other  things  needful  for  munitions  and 
transportation  which  were  not  native  to  the  coun- 
try. And  in  the  first  years  of  the  war,  before  the 
blockade  was  really  effective,  more  of  these  ma- 
terials were  imported.  In  19 15  Germany  was 
able  to  get  in  nearly  one-half  of  her  usual  pre- 
war annual  importation  of  cotton.  There  were 
also  certain  reserve  stocks  of  native  raw  materials, 
so  that  any  lessening  of  production  because  of  a 
heavy  diversion  of  man-power  to  the  army  would 
not  handicap  the  needs  of  the  war-lords. 

But  as  the  war  ran  on,  longer,  much  longer, 
than  the  General  Staff  had  ever  counted  on,  these 
accumulations  were  exhausted.  Then  came  the 
days  of  strenuous  attempts  to  smuggle  in  every 
least  bit  of  needed  metal,  cotton,  wool  and  rub- 
ber, of  wholesale  systematized  stripping  of  the  oc- 


Germany  Now  and  To-Morrow        89 

cupied  territories  even  to  name-plates  from  the 
doors  and  wool  from  the  mattresses,  of  substitute 
alloys  and  pine  bark  "  cotton."  All  industrial 
production  for  export  stopped,  of  course,  at  the 
very  beginning  of  the  war,  and  production  for 
home  use  was  made  over  into  production  for  war 
use.  Before  the  war  Krupp's  steel  output  was 
over  90  per  cent,  for  civilian  purposes;  in  19 17  it 
was  over  90  per  cent,  for  war  purposes.  The 
great  dye  factories  became  instantly,  and  with 
almost  no  interruption  of  work,  factories  for  high 
explosives.  German  industry  was  gradually  all 
concentrated  on  meeting  the  one  crying  need:  war 
supplies.  German  raw  materials  were  all  used, 
and  used  up,  to  produce  things  of  destruction, 
which  were  themselves  destroyed  in  destroying. 
The  result  of  all  this  was  to  leave  Germany, 
when  the  end  of  the  war  came,  with  a  certain 
amount  of  manufactured  war  supplies  on  hand, 
a  small  amount  of  native  raw  materials  waiting  to 
be  converted  into  more  war  supplies,  and  almost 
no  stocks  of  supplies  for  civilian  use.  As  to 
stocks  of  manufactured  articles  for  export  —  which 
is  a  matter  the  business  men  of  other  countries  are 
much  interested  in  and  concerning  which  many 


90        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

guesses  have  been  made  —  It  is  not  easy,  perhaps 
it  Is  impossible,  to  speak  with  certainty.  But  one 
may  be  pretty  confident  that  all  talk  of  Germany's 
being  prepared,  the  minute  the  blockade  is  re- 
leased, to  dump  large  quantities  of  her  special 
products  such  as  dye-stuffs,  chemicals,  scientific  in- 
struments, potash,  and  the  rest,  on  to  the  markets 
of  the  world  is  idle  talk.  There  were  probably 
considerable  stocks  of  some  of  these  things  on 
hand  when  the  war  began  but  many  of  them  were 
materials  which  could  be  made  use  of  for  war  pur- 
poses by  Germany  herself;  and  these  were  cer- 
tainly used.  And  the  labor,  coal  and  raw  ma- 
terial difficulties  certainly  permitted  no  extensive 
manufacture  during  the  Armistice  period. 

However,  with  the  demand  for  war  supplies  at 
an  end,  and  with  importation  of  raw  materials 
again  possible  Germany  can  turn  her  attention  — 
all  of  It  not  required  to  be  concentrated  on  internal 
political,  financial  and  social  problems  —  to  be- 
ginning to  build  up  her  industries  for  the  produc- 
tion of  civilian  articles  for  home  need  and  for 
export.  This  attention  must  first  be  directed  to 
the  re-conversion  of  her  converted  factories.  The 
factories  for  high  explosives  can  easily  become 


Germany  Now  and  To-Morrow        91 

factories  for  dye-stuffs  and  chemicals  again; 
Krupp's  can  reverse  the  percentage  of  its  steel  out- 
put from  90  per  cent,  war  to  90  per  cent,  civilian 
purposes.  Some  other  factories  cannot  be  so 
quickly  put  back  into  peace-time  work. 

But  the  re-conversion  of  factories  is  perhaps 
the  least  of  the  difficulties  to  be  met.  Two  others 
especially  are  of  great  importance. 

There  is  a  scarcity  of  coal  —  although  there  need 
not  be  a  scarcity  for  any  particular  industry  if  the 
government  decides  to  cut  somewhere  else.  Some 
coal  must  be  exported  in  exchange  for  certain  in- 
dispensable imports,  as,  for  example,  to  Switzer- 
land, Holland  and  Denmark  for  food.  Also 
what  coal  there  is  has  become  very  expensive. 
The  cost  of  coal  per  ton  has  risen  about  300  per 
cent.,  imposing  a  great  increase  in  the  cost  of  man- 
ufacture. 

There  is  a  scarcity  of  skilled  labor.  The  Gen- 
eral Staff  kept  skilled  labor  out  of  the  army  as 
long  as  it  could  but  before  the  end  came  much 
of  it  had  to  be  enrolled,  and  many  of  the  men 
were  killed  or  mutilated.  In  addition  the  recon- 
struction work  in  Belgium  and  France,  demanded 
by  the  treaty,  will  keep  much  German  labor  busy 


92        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

for  a  long  time.  What  there  is  left  for  the  Ger- 
man factories  will  have  to  be  paid  for  at  two  to 
three  times  the  pre-war  rate;  and  it  will  return 
a  much  lessened  output  than  In  the  good  old  days 
of  nine  and  ten  hours  —  they  are  eight-hour  days 
now  —  and  of  a  high  industrial  morale.  That 
morale  is,  certainly  for  the  moment,  gone. 

Finally  there  are  the  great  political  and  eco- 
nomic changes  to  talce  into  account;  the  changes  al- 
ready made,  the  changes  that  are  still  to  come. 
These  changes  affect  both  labor  and  capital. 
They  give  labor  a  control  it  has  not  had  before 
which  will  be  exercised  in  directions  opposed  to 
the  old  exploitation  of  man-power  in  manufac- 
turing. And  they  make  capital  afraid.  Initia- 
tive under  these  risks  will  be  lessened;  there  will  be 
a  reduction  of  working  capital  to  the  lowest 
amount  possible;  fears  of  sequestration  will  keep 
capital  out  of  sight;  capital  will  have  a  dispropor- 
tionate share  of  the  war-debt  to  pay;  there  will  be 
"  socialization "  of  certain  industries,  with  its 
doubtful  effect  on  efficiency. 

But  Germany  will  undoubtedly  return  to  work; 
she  must,  or  literally  fall  to  pieces.  Business  will 
undoubtedly  try  to  resume  Its  old  methods  of  gain- 


Germany  Now  and  To-Morrow        93 

ing  and  dominating  foreign  markets,  but  to  do 
this  will  it  have  that  powerful  government  sup- 
port that  the  old  regime  gave  it,  and  will  it  not 
need  exactly  this  kind  of  support  more  than  ever 
before? 

Altogether,  to  my  thinking,  fears  of  a  quick  re- 
sumption of  German  industrial  and  commercial 
dominance  in  world  trade  seem  to  me  only 
fears  of  the  thoughtless  mind,  the  mind  that 
does  not  take  new  circumstances  into  account  but 
works  in  a  groove  creased  by  experience  of  days 
and  conditions  that  are  gone  and  kept  open  by 
memories  of  a  time  that  is  past.  On  the  other 
hand  hopes  of  a  less  dangerous  but  a  reasonable 
and  needed  resuming  of  German  industry  will  have 
every  chance  of  rcahzation  if  the  world  outside 
Germany  is  fairly  generous  as  to  credit,  and  the 
world  inside  Germany  finds  soon  some  political 
stability. 

In  all  discussions  of  the  future  of  Germany, 
which  attempt  to  point  out  probabilities  based  on 
premises  of  actual  material  conditions,  one  con- 
stantly meets  a  certain  kind  of  argument  in  rebut- 
tal which  is  triumphantly  summed  up  in  the  expres- 
sion:    "You  can't  tell  me;  I  know  Germans." 


94        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

The  idea  is  that  the  future  of  Germany  will  be 
determined  by  Germans  and  not  by  material  facts, 
not  by  conditions  imposed  by  the  rest  of  the  world 
or  by  the  presence  or  absence  of  raw  materials 
and  coal,  and  labor,  and  money,  or  by  any  other 
hard  and  fast  material  circumstances.  And  the 
idea  is,  further,  that  Germans  will  always  behave 
as  we  have  seen  them  behave.  It  is  on  the  basis 
of  this  behavior  that  we  claim  that  we  know  them. 
But  does,  indeed,  anybody  really  "  know  Ger- 
mans." Because  Germans  are  human  beings  like 
ourselves  and  because  they  read  the  same  history, 
study  the  same  mathematics  and  science  and 
philosophy,  speak  a  language  that  we  can  acquire, 
enjoy  the  same  music  and  pictures,  live,  in  a  word, 
as  we  hve,  can  we,  from  the  experience  of  knowing 
ourselves,  know  Germans?  We  have,  most  of  us, 
certainly  decided  that  the  Germans,  from  the  ex- 
perience of  knowing  themselves,  certainly  do  not 
know  other  people.  Their  behavior  during  the 
war  has  shown  that  they  did  not  know  English, 
Belgians  or  Americans.  But  whether  this  be- 
havior, as  we  have  seen  it  with  horror  and  dis- 
may, is  the  only  thing  we  are  to  take  into  account 


Germany  Now  and  To-Morrow        95 

in  our  attempt  to  prophesy  as  to  German  future 
doing  and  becoming  seems  to  me  very  doubtful. 

The  world  needs  a  better  knowledge  of  human 
biology;  a  more  developed  science  of  the  human 
species.  We  need  to  Icnow  much  more  of  the  pos- 
sible influence  of  environment  and  education  in  de- 
termining the  psychology  and  behavior  of  a  given 
human  group.  Because  we  are  all  of  the  same 
species  must  all  those  of  us  with  relatively  equal 
endowment  of  brain  and  nervous  system  feel  and 
think  essentially  alike?  And  if  we  do  not  —  as 
of  course  we  really  do  not  —  must  that  prove  a 
fundamental  distinction  among  us  as  to  stock  and 
biological  inheritance?  Or  can  a  varying  inten- 
sive type  of  environment  and  education  produce  so 
radical  a  differentiation  among  us,  among  groups 
of  men  of  similar  basic  make-up,  that  we  can 
come  to  react  very  differently  to  the  same  stimulus, 
and  hence  be,  for  the  practical  purposes  of  living 
and  associating  with  each  other,  very  different 
kinds  of  creatures? 

My  own  experience  in  the  last  four  years  has 
done  much  to  make  me  over  from  a  convinced  be- 
liever in  the  dominating  influence  of  heredity  over 


96        Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

environment  and  education  In  determining  human 
behavior  and  moral  makeup  Into  a  believer  in  the 
great  possibilities  of  the  modifying  effect  of  en- 
vironmental conditions.  Germans  are  not  so  dif- 
ferent from  Englishmen  and  Americans  by  stock, 
that  is,  by  inheritance;  but  they  have  been  made 
different  by  education,  using  the  word  in  Its  larger 
biological  sense.  And  If  this  is  true  there  is  hope 
that  they  may  be  changed  again  if  their  educa- 
tion Is  sufficiently  changed;  that  if  their  environ- 
ment becomes  strongly  democratic  and  democra- 
tizing they  may  In  time  become  of  the  democratic 
faith. 

This  Is  not  to  say  that  the  adoption  of  a  form 
of  democratic  government  necessarily  means  the 
acquirement  of  the  democratic  faith.  Democracy 
is  more  a  matter  of  education,  of  the  acquirement 
of  an  attitude,  of  a  state  of  mind  and  heart, 
the  possession  of  a  feeling  of  good  will  and  gen- 
erosity, a  willingness  to  give  every  man  and  every 
group  of  men  a  fair  chance  In  both  Internal  and 
external  relations,  and  a  gladness  to  see  all  man- 
kind move  forward  and  upward.  It  means  less 
class  feeling  and  more  human  feeling;  It  is  al- 
truism, not  egoism.     It  Involves  internationalism. 


Germany  Now  and  To-Morrow       97 

but    not    simply    the    internationalism    of    the 
proletariat. 

Can  Germans  come  to  this?  Not  if  human 
nature  is  immutable.  But  it  is  not.  The  pres- 
ent human  nature  of  the  Germans  is  not  neces- 
sarily a  human  nature  they  have  always  had. 
Indeed  it  is  certain  that  it  is  not.  It  was  much 
worse  once,  in  times  very  far  back,  than  it  is 
now;  and  in  times  not  so  far  back  it  was  better 
than  it  is  now.  The  study  of  the  pre-history  of 
the  Germans  and  of  the  rest  of  the  Europeans  — 
of  all  the  human  race,  for  that  matter, —  shows 
that  we  were  at  one  time,  in  the  course  of  human 
evolution,  in  a  stage  literally  but  little  removed 
from  a  truly  brute  condition.  We  were  simply 
"  animal  among  animals."  But  by  the  nature  of 
our  physical  evolution,  which  gave  us  speech  and 
the  possibility  of  recording  our  traditions,  and 
gave  us  a  special  development  of  mind  rather  than 
better  claws  and  teeth  with  which  to  carry  on 
our  struggle  for  existence,  our  general  course  of 
evolution  diverged  importantly  from  that  of  the 
other  great  animals  in  that  it  moved  toward  de- 
velopment on  a  basis  of  the  mutual  aid  principle 
rather  than  the  mutual  struggle  principle.     We 


98       Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

found  a  genuine  biologic  advantage  in  altruism, 
just  as  the  social  insects,  the  ants  and  bees,  most 
successful  of  insect  types,  found  it. 

Our  nature  changed;  it  became  more  and  more 
what  we  now  recognize  by  the  phrase  human  na- 
ture as  contrasted  with  brute  nature.  And  it 
changed  rapidly;  rapidly,  that  is,  from  the  biologi- 
cal point  of  view. 

But  the  important  element  which  has  made 
possible  the  immense  hastening  of  this  change  of 
nature,  of  mental  and  moral  makeup,  has  been  the 
element  of  environment  and  education,  rather  than 
that  of  pure  natural  selection.  In  our  social  evo- 
lution we  have  been  able  to  hold  fast,  by  virtue 
of  speech  and  writing,  to  steps  which  are  not 
actually  a  part  of  our  natural  evolution.  We 
have  a  social  or  traditional  inheritance  as  well  as 
a  physical  inheritance.  And  it  is  by  conscious  mod- 
ification of  our  environment  and  education  that  we 
can  determine  the  character  of  this  all-important 
influence  on  our  lives. 

The  Germans  have  been  made  what  most  of 
them  are  to-day  by  a  perverted  and  brutalizing 
education.  They  were  taught  that  human  evolu- 
tion is  chiefly  determined  by  crass  and  cruel  nat- 


Germany  Now  and  To-Morrow        99 

ural  selection;  that  the  struggle  for  existence 
among  human  groups  is  the  complete  analogue  of 
this  struggle  among  the  brute  groups.  The 
strongest  in  fighting  are  the  fittest  to  live. 

Well,  if  that  is  so  —  and  it  is  not;  but  if  it  is  — 
what  do  the  Germans  think  to-day  about  the  fit- 
ness and  value  of  their  type  of  cultural  develop- 
ment? Is  it  not,  on  the  very  basis  of  their  own 
perverted  reading  of  the  factors  of  evolution, 
proved  to  be  an  unfit  type?  I  remember  how 
often  my  old  friend,  the  university  professor  of 
biology  on  the  German  General  Staff  at  Charle- 
vllle  used  to  say:  "  We  must  Inevitably  win  this 
war  for  we  are  biologically  right;  we  are  the  fit- 
test to  live,  and  hence  nature  is  with  us.  That 
group  which  can  dominate  other  groups  is  the 
chosen  of  evolution.  It  should  struggle  with 
other  groups  and  it  should  win  over  them  and 
dominate  them  for  the  sake  of  the  evolutionary  ad- 
vance of  the  human  race." 

Well,  does  he  hold  fast  to  that  now?  If  so 
let  him,  and  the  others  who  believe  with  him, 
tell  the  German  people  that  the  American,  Eng- 
lish, French  type  of  civilization,  of  social  organ- 
ization, of  democracy,  of  human  nature,  is  the 


100     Germany  in  the  War  and  After 

right  one,  the  one  proven  best  by  biological  law. 
For  it  happens  to  have  won  in  the  struggle. 

But  whether  these  men  accept  the  war's  verdict, 
or  not,  as  the  verdict  of  natural  law,  there  will 
be  plenty  of  less  scientifically-informed,  less  sophis- 
ticated but  more  common-sensible  Germans  who 
will  see  in  the  debacle  of  Germany's  autocracy  and 
militarism  the  need  and  the  opportunity  of  chang- 
ing the  type  of  German  education,  of  changing  the 
environment  of  Germany's  new  generation  to  one 
more  in  keeping  with  the  world's  present  stage  of 
social  evolution.  It  is  the  stage  of  democracy; 
German  human  nature  can  be  changed  to  fit  in 
with  it.  We  may  not  "  know  Germans,"  but  we 
do  know  something  about  human  beings  in  gen- 
eral, and  Germans  are,  after  all,  of  that  biological 
category.  And  human  beings  can  change,  and 
change  fairly  rapidly,  their  consciously  controlled 
environment,  and  hence  the  character  of  their  so- 
cial evolution. 

There  are  still  sixty  million  Germans  in  Ger- 
many: a  human  group  of  great  potentiality.  All 
they  need  is  the  proper  education;  the  kind  of  en- 
vironment that  the  world  has  come  to  under- 
stand as  the  best  for  right  influence  on  human 


Germany  Now  and  To-Morrow      loi 

evolution.  Instead  of  carrying  their  old  type 
of  social  organization  and  political  attitude  to  all 
the  rest  of  the  world  and  imposing  it  on  the  rest 
of  the  world  by  force,  they  have  now  for  their 
own  sake  and  the  sake  of  human  progress  to  ac- 
cept another  type.  I  believe  that,  with  time,  they 
will  see  this  and  do  it.  But  it  will  not  be  done 
in  a  day. 


THE    END 


PKINTID    IN   THB    ¥XITBD    STATHS    OF   AMIBIOA 


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